Case Study: Alder Hey Children's Hospital reduces patient anxiety and personalises care with IBM Watson

Using IBM Watson cognitive technology to enhance the patient experience

Alder Hey Children's Hospital, one of Europe’s largest paediatric centres serving more than 275,000 patients a year with 3,200 staff, faced the challenge of making hospital visits less intimidating for children and their families. To tackle patient anxiety and improve the overall experience, Alder Hey partnered with IBM to apply IBM Watson cognitive technology across its new “Alder Hey in the Park” facility.

Working with the STFC Hartree Centre, the team fed hundreds of anonymized, unstructured patient and parent responses into the IBM Watson platform to uncover hidden insights and train the system to anticipate questions and preferences. IBM Watson now delivers cognitive analytics that help clinicians personalise stays, reduce patient anxiety, support potential patient-flow optimisation and clinical research matching, and ultimately aim to get children better — and home — faster.

Alder Hey Children's Hospital

Iain Hennessey

Paediatric Surgeon and Clinical Director of Innovation