Children’s Mercy Kansas City Launches Nation’s First Pediatric Hospital Operations Center

Children’s Mercy Kansas City has launched their Patient Progression Hub – a hospital operations center that uses AI, predictive analytics, and real-time information to optimize care progression. To power this new operations hub, Mercy Kansas has deployed GE HealthCare’s Command Center software across their organization and co-located key operational teams in a 6,000 square foot space that serves as a new center of gravity for patient access, throughput, and care quality.

“Prior to implementation, the organization relied on manual processes and often retrospective data to understand patient census and anticipate discharges,” said Jodi Coombs, MBA, BSN, RN, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Children’s Mercy. “Now we have visibility into operations across the entire system to make faster and smarter complex decisions as soon as vital workflows change. The Patient Progression Hub journey enables endless possibilities for using real-time data to drive actions that deliver excellent patient care and supports our team members.”

The Patient Progression Hub enables improvements such as:

Centralizing bed placement to manage the right bed in the right place, on time
Using real-time data to avoid unnecessary delays
Leveraging AI-guided census predictions to improve staffing
Streamlining discharge processes with real-time and predictive analytics

“Most patients and families won’t even know the command center exists, but they will significantly feel the impact – less waiting around for a bed and getting discharged quicker so they can go home that much sooner,” said Robert Lane, MD, MS, Executive Vice President and Physician-in-Chief. “Making better informed decisions leads to better outcomes for our patients, families and our staff.”