Two PhD researchers have helped GPs and urgent care centres drive better engagement with patients.
OneMedical Group, a family-owned healthcare organisation based in Leeds, delivering health services nationally, wanted to tap into academic expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency, enhance patient pathways and shape future models of care.
The University of Leeds interns, Omar Choudhry and Sashi Kiran Mahapatra, were asked to investigate and come up with solutions to alleviate operational pressures for GPs and other healthcare staff.
At The Light Surgery in Leeds city centre, they engaged directly with clinical teams to understand their challenges and explore how technology could streamline high-volume administrative tasks.
For instance, they used AI to analyse the issues around missed appointments – known as 'Did Not Attends'. The aim was to avoid gaps in care for the patients and cut waste in NHS resources.
Sashi, who came to Leeds from India to do her Masters by Research in Digital Health said: "I am used to focussing on a solution-oriented approach from an engineering and analytics perspective, but this experience meant I had to speak to people from very diverse backgrounds to understand the nature of the problems they and the health staff were facing.
"It was quite a learning curve. I had to take in a lot of background information regarding the day-to-day working of a GP surgery, the appointment system, resource planning and allocation to understand the context and ask a lot of questions to discover what patients needed."
"I discovered that people missed appointments particularly in the early morning or mid afternoon due to commuting and childcare issues, and that communication failures also contributed to appointment gaps.
"As well as suggesting more personalised and proactive support, such as with transport and language, I highlighted potential issues with the coding system which the team will proactively investigate. Hopefully, this will also improve follow-up processes.
"It was quite a learning curve. I had to take in a lot of background information regarding the day-to-day working of a GP surgery, the appointment system, resource planning and allocation to understand the context and ask a lot of questions to discover what patients needed."
Omar is now undertaking an integrated PhD and MSc course at the University of Leeds, specialising in Artificial Intelligence for Medical Diagnosis and Care. He is Chair of the AI Society at Leeds University Union.
Omar helped OneMedical Group improve its referral process during his month-long internship.
He used AI to identify patients who needed to see third party professionals such as physiotherapists, dermatologists, dieticians or mental health practitioners to explore how they could access those services faster and more directly.
Omar devised a system that didn't necessarily entail an initial GP appointment, which can slow down the referral process.
"Better communication, problem solving and teamwork are more important than ever and this is why our internship at OneMedical Group was so important."
He also sped up the process by which a student acquires a GP letter to send to a university to support a submission for mitigating circumstances. He found that this process, which normally took two to three weeks, could be done the same day, within minutes.
Omar said: "I also helped staff become more confident in using AI for compiling emails and documents. It saved them so much time."
Omar added that soft skills as well as AI expertise were invaluable. "Better communication, problem solving and teamwork are more important than ever and this is why our internship at OneMedical Group was so important."
Collaboration enhances patient care
Rachel Beverley-Stevenson, Co-Founder and Chief Executive of OneMedical Group said: "This collaboration has delivered far more than technical outputs. It has strengthened our organisational capability, challenged our thinking and accelerated our understanding of what responsible, effective AI adoption looks like in primary care settings.
"These projects demonstrate how applied AI research can highlight system inefficiencies, devise better workflows and free up clinical time to focus on what matters most – patient care."
Owen Johnson, Associate Professor AI and Digital Health at AI-Medical at the University of Leeds, said: "It has been fantastic to see how our PhD students have gained so much from our partnership with OneMedical Group.
"They have had the chance to think hard about the practical challenges of implementing AI within clinical practice, working alongside OneMedical Group's professional teams.
"For AI to be successful in the NHS we need many more collaborations like this."
