Transforming cardiology care with AI-driven innovation
Walsall Manor Hospital is a large district general hospital in the Midlands, England. It is the only hospital site in the Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, providing inpatient and outpatient healthcare services to almost 300,000 people in the city of Walsall and the surrounding areas, both at the hospital itself and across 60 community health centres and general practitioner surgeries. The hospital is a secondary care centre with approximately 550 beds. It offers multidisciplinary services, including state-of-the-art surgical theatres and an emergency department handling 120-150 medical patients daily. Around 30% of these cases are cardiology-related, with patients presenting with chest pain, breathing difficulties, blackouts, or palpitations.
The cardiology department at Walsall Manor Hospital is transforming cardiology care with AI-driven innovation, providing comprehensive services including inpatient care with 23 dedicated beds, outpatient services, and a state-of-the-art Cardiac Intervention Suite, known as the cath lab.
The lab carries out over 1,600 procedures annually, including angiograms, pacemaker implants, loop recorder insertions, echocardiograms, and cardioversions. More complex procedures are referred to New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, a tertiary care centre within the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust.
Streamlining cardiac lab operations with digital transformation
The cath lab at Walsall faced challenges in recording and data-sharing. Initially notes were recorded through dictation, manually typed, and then added to patient records separately from electronic procedure records. Consequently, this process could take up to a week and required substantial administrative and secretarial effort, increasing time, effort, and costs.
To address these inefficiencies, the department sought a new digital solution to optimize workflows. Dr. Jeffrey Anthony, Clinical Director of Cardiology at Walsall Manor Hospital, explained: “Our goals included generating complete patient reports before the patient left the laboratory, alleviating the administrative burden on staff, streamlining data management and transfer, and providing a single point of access to relevant data. We were also aiming for a completely paperless and seamless workflow to minimize our administrative time and associated costs, all while ensuring the solution was easy to use.”
Enhancing Patient Care with Advanced Healthcare Technology
The hospital considered options from several vendors and chose GE HealthCare. GE offered a cost-effective and logistically feasible option that could be installed with minimal downtime and disruption to the lab’s daily operations. Staff members had already been using GE HealthCare products for many years, including the Mac-Lab Hemodynamic Recording System and a C-arm for cardiac imaging in the secondary cath lab. This familiarity and positive experiences with GE HealthCare’s platforms influenced their decision. The department adopted the GE HealthCare Innova™ IGS 5 with AutoRight™ system for next-generation 3D imaging, beginning refurbishments in 2018. They also migrated to the Centricity™ Cardio Workflow (CCW) system, part of Centricity Cardio Enterprise, in 2021-2022.
This provided a secure, single point of access for patient and procedure records in the cath lab and for CT scans and echocardiography procedures.
Boosting capacity, efficiency and patient care in the cardiology department with advanced solutions
Previously, the team had conducted around 200 angiograms annually. Following the installation of the GE HealthCare solutions, the hospital now performs approximately 800 angiograms per year. The cardiology department also carries out 600 CT scans and 300-400 myocardial perfusion scans annually. Automation and integration have significantly reduced the administrative and data handling burden for staff, improving user experience and time
management. Fast and simplified reporting also contributes to the department’s compliance with current and evolving data protection regulations.
Dr. Anthony continued: “The CCW system enables quick reporting, often within 10 minutes, allowing us to deliver results and treatment plans promptly. It also ensures seamless integration with hospital records. This represents a significant improvement from earlier workflows that relied on manual reporting and transcription, which could take days. Patients can now receive printed reports and summaries immediately after their procedures, minimizing their anxiety and encouraging transparency and trust.”
Seamless transition to a fully integrated and paperless system
The transition to the CCW platform was completed in 2022. It was a collaborative effort involving the hospital’s IT, radiology, and cardiology departments, and industry partners. The project resulted in a fully electronic, paperless system for requesting, scheduling, and reporting procedures. This transformation has improved user experience, reduced reliance on secretarial tasks, and enhanced environmental sustainability. The integration of CCW with the hospital’s existing PACS and patient information systems has streamlined reporting and database management. Reports are now accessible on the patient information platform immediately after completion in the cath lab. This seamless integration allows image transfer directly between Walsall Manor and New Cross hospitals, enhancing collaboration and efficiency.
Dr. Anthony added: “The transition was generally smooth for the cardiac team due to our previous familiarity with GE HealthCare’s systems and the availability of our secondary cath lab for use during the upgrade. The department’s experience working with GE HealthCare has been very positive. GE has continually provided training sessions and iterative workflow adjustments both remotely and in person, to ensure that the system meets our needs effectively. Today, the company’s solutions significantly enhance our diagnostic accuracy and capacity, and improve patient outcomes, which have always been our primary goals.”
Shaping the future of cardiology with AI and collaboration
AI-driven solutions in cardiology are transforming the future of medicine by enhancing diagnostic efficiency, streamlining workflows, and supporting preventative care initiatives. In the cardiology department at Walsall Manor Hospital, these technologies already enable personalized, targeted therapy, while simultaneously reducing delays in diagnosis. Collaboration with industry partners like GE HealthCare will continue to be pivotal for the hospital to further optimize outcomes for cardiac patients.
"Looking ahead, I am optimistic about the transformative potential of AI-driven solutions in cardiology to enhance patient care and improve workflows. AI has already made significant strides at our hospital by standardizing templates and automating data capture for echocardiograms. I envision further applications in areas like CT imaging, atrial fibrillation management, and patient triaging. As the NHS faces financial constraints, AI offers us scalable solutions to enhance efficiency, reduce workloads, and address systemic challenges such as waiting lists, ultimately benefiting both patients and healthcare systems," Dr. Anthony concluded.
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* Footnote: Dr Jeffrey Anthony and GEHC do not have a contractual relationship beyond the fact of being a GEHC product end user. Their statements are based on their own opinions and on results that were achieved in the customer's unique setting. Actual results may vary. GE HealthCare does not guarantee results.
