Can AI improve healthcare outcomes? Bigbear.ai aims to find out with medical partnership

Despite some cuts and its staff size shrinking from over 600 to 482, BigBear.ai continues to specialize in AI-driven data analytics, cybersecurity and more for public and private clients across industries. A recently announced partnership with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia will further use one of BigBear.ai’s AI-focused platforms.

That’s the company’s FutureFlow Rx Predictive AI platform. The partnership expansion will help enable Jefferson to create a “digital twin,” a virtual or digital replica of a real-world object, system or process.

“Strategically, the platform allows teams to run long-term forecasts anywhere from days to years into the future,” said Ryan Stenger, a marketing and communications representative for BigBear.ai. “Customers have complete control of their inputs and can test larger scale changes such as the impact to census, staffing and boarding if they were to grow a specific service. Or testing new patient placement algorithms and bed allocations to better level load future service level capacity and demand.”

Here’s a demo video of what FutureFlow Rx and a patient flow analytics platform might look like for Jefferson:

The announcement noted that the expansion aims to bring about day-to-day operational improvements in various critical areas, including centralized resource and bed management, nurse staffing and the hospital’s transfer center.

“BigBear.ai is thrilled to expand its work with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital,” BigBear.AI Chief Growth Officer Greg Goldwater in the press release. “Because BigBear’s Predictive AI platform can effectively predict future outcomes through event simulation and ‘What if’ analysis, it’s a game-changer for hospital systems looking to roll out strategic growth plans. We look forward to our next phase of collaboration that will ultimately drive better patient care and outcomes.”

Hospitals like Jefferson can apply potential future operational scenarios to their digital twin, and in turn might gain insights into how the virtual hospital responds to various situations — even those that may place stress on the institution and its staff, like not having a patient bed.

This partnership between the intelligence solutions company and the hospital began with a strategic planning exercise. During the exercise, FutureFlow Rx conducted a series of tests to predict likely outcomes before a patient’s interaction with the healthcare system and activities. One of those tests used the FutureFlow Rx platform’s ability to create an 18-month forecast which might identify a flu season surge and better plan contract nursing strategies to meet demand.

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is currently an over 900-bed hospital, according to its website, and the predictions during the aforementioned exercise were based on projected hospital volume growth and shifts in demand. Per the release, the results of this collaboration enabled Jefferson to optimize its master facility plan, ensuring it aligns best with the future needs of patients.

BigBear.ai also recently announced plans to acquire Pangiam, another AI-focused company, in an all-stock deal worth approximately $70 million.