14% Efficiency Boost for Complex Hernia Surgeries

We completed a case study on a data set of ~5000 complex hernia repair surgeries, which took place over the course of two years.

First, we built our custom ML model for this particular site and specialty. It was trained on specialty-specific patient and surgeon characteristics, along with surgery duration and anaesthesia type information.​ We also set up our smart scheduling algorithm to work with site-specific parameters.

The resulting system was then used to schedule 500 previously unseen procedures with a click of a button, and evaluated against true durations of those procedures to assess the impact on theatre utilisation and number of procedures that get carried out.

Compared to a one-size-fits-all scheduling approach, our smart schedule showed a 14% increase in theatre utilisation time!
Further, overtimes - a major issue in specialties with complex procedures and high variability between cases - were nearly 30% shorter when they occurred.

Considering the average price of a hernia repair surgery is quoted at around £5000 by the NHS, this amounts to an additional £600,000* in revenue annually for one operating theatre.

* Based on the average cost of a complex hernia surgery under the NHS Payment Scheme 2023-25