CHI Franciscan introduced the first artificial intelligence health care hub to its acute care facilities on Monday in an effort to increase access to care and improve health outcomes for patients.

The hub — coined the Mission Control Center — is partnered with GE Healthcare and uses predictive analytics to centralize patient care across eight of CHI Franciscan’s acute care hospitals, according to the health care system. CHI Franciscan is the first hospital system in the state of Washington, and the fifth globally, to use this technology.

“When you have a large complex healthcare system with multiple sites across a geographic region, it becomes more and more important to coordinate the delivery of patient care,” Mission Control Division Director Matt Metsker said.

“There are different specialties of services across sites and we want to match resources with patient needs.”

The central hub of the Mission Control Center will be based in CHI Franciscan’s Medical Clinic in Gig Harbor with a wall of 18 screens. There will be three hospital-based satellite locations at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way, St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and Harrison Medical Center in Silverdale. The Mission Control Center will have 12 data-rich tiles that display real-time data across locations.

“Not only is it going to help us with our quality and safety, it’s also going to fundamentally increase the access to all of our sites so that when patients need to get into our hospitals or facilities, we have the capacity and capability to bring them in to meet or exceed their expectations,” Mission Control Board Chair Mary Ragsdale said.

“We think it will improve the experience and reduce the wait.”

Ragsdale said Mission Control can be accessed on any computer work station. “We’ve made it so it’s transparent with every single individual within our organization, which allows us to hold each other accountable, the board chair said.

In real-time, Mission Control staff will help hospital care teams determine patient capacity, bed availability, patient care progression and hospital transfers.

“It’s really great to have that supplemental information or data to help you make quick decisions, more effective decisions, and the right decisions for patients,” Ragsdale said.

“When there are obvious needs and you see something that you think will make a great connection, it’s natural to move toward it,” Metsker said. “You may see in the future, a move in the in-patient health care settings to see more and more clinical command centers.”

Both Metsker and Ragsdale raved about the frugality and transparency that they say the Mission Control Center will bring forward.

“We can use real-time data to make better decisions in the moment,” Metsker said. “We can also trend that data over time to see where we’re having issues. Really, Mission Control is the people, the processes and the technology. We think we have the right combinations of those things here.”

Ragsdale said the health care system can become more proactive with “Mission Control.”

“We can begin to understand where we’re not meeting the needs of our patients, employees and medical staff.”

Tyler Shuey is a reporter for Kitsap News Group. He can be reached at tshuey@soundpublishing.com