GE HealthCare teams up with Queen's and Duke to build AI-driven hospital operations software
Operations leaders are under pressure: higher patient acuity, staffing shortages, rising costs, and limited capacity. Health system expenses rose 6% year-over-year in 2024 (staff up 5%, supplies up 9%), while the U.S. faces a projected 10% nursing shortage by 2027. Source Source
To tackle this, GE HealthCare is collaborating with The Queen's Health Systems (Honolulu, HI) and Duke Health (Durham, NC) on a new AI-driven, cloud-first hospital operations application-part of the CareIntellect family. Both systems will provide frontline input so the software reflects real workflows, not theory.
Why this matters for operations
- Move from dashboards to recommended actions. AI and predictive analytics will flag issues early and suggest next steps in real time.
- Focus spans bed demand, staffing, and equipment-so leaders can coordinate across silos without juggling five tools.
- Improve throughput and access while protecting staff time and reducing waste.
What's coming with CareIntellect
- Cloud-first SaaS: faster deployment and fewer one-off integrations.
- Shared infrastructure: enterprise-grade security, centralized identity and access (e.g., SSO), centralized billing, and standard EMR connections.
- Seamless updates: over-the-air enhancements without long maintenance windows.
This approach builds on what GE HealthCare learned from nearly 500 hospitals using Command Center across 55,000 beds. The goal: help leaders see what's next and act before bottlenecks hit.
Proven impact from Command Center
Queen's Health Systems used GE HealthCare's Command Center software as part of a broader operations push and reported:
- 22.2% increase in transfer admissions within 10 months, enabling ~100 additional transfer patients per month across Hawaii
- 41.2% reduction in emergency department length of stay, with steady ED admission volume
- 1.07-day reduction in overall patient length of stay in 10 months
- ~$20M estimated savings from reduced length of stay in year one
Leaders at Queen's and Duke say timely, trustworthy insights help them adjust quickly, resolve issues sooner, and standardize decision-making across facilities.
How operators can put this to work on day one
- Run daily huddles off predicted bottlenecks: bed demand, ICU capacity, and discharge barriers for the next 24-72 hours.
- Align staffing to forecasted inflow and acuity; plan flex pools with fewer last-minute scrambles.
- Tighten transfer center triage using real-time load and readiness signals.
- Cut ED boarding by coordinating bed turns, transport, and diagnostics from a single source of truth.
- Increase equipment availability through proactive redeployment and downtime visibility.
Questions to ask your team now
- Data readiness: Do we have reliable feeds for ADT, orders, procedures, staffing, and assets?
- Access and governance: Is SSO in place? Who owns roles, alerts, and audit trails?
- Change management: Who will champion new workflows on units and in the transfer center?
- KPIs and thresholds: What are our target LOS, boarding time, discharge before noon, and diversion metrics-and who acts when thresholds are breached?
- Playbooks: Are escalation paths clear when predicted demand outstrips capacity?
Collaboration and next steps
GE HealthCare is co-developing this application with leading health systems so it fits real operational needs. If you want to explore software fit or discuss collaboration opportunities, visit GE HealthCare Command Center Collaboration.
If you're building AI fluency across your operations team-so people can act on insights faster-see practical learning paths at Complete AI Training: Courses by Job.
Context and sources
- Hospital finances overview: Advisory Board
- Nursing shortage outlook: AONL
GE HealthCare serves patients and providers globally with medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and AI-enabled software. The company reports ~$19.7B in revenue and ~53,000 employees and was recognized among the 2025 Fortune World's Most Admired Companies.
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