The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for the U.S. healthcare system due to the mismatch between healthcare system capacity and patient demand. The healthcare industry has been a slow adopter of digital innovation due to the conventional belief that humans need to be at the center of every healthcare delivery task. In the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, artificial intelligence (AI) may be used to carry out specific tasks such as pre-hospital triage and allow clinicians to deliver care at scale. Recognizing that the majority of COVID-19 cases are mild and do not require hospitalization, Partners HealthCare implemented an automated pre-hospital triage solution to direct patients to the appropriate care setting before they showed up at the emergency department, which would otherwise consume resources, expose other patients and staff to potential viral transmission, and further exacerbate supply-and demand mismatching. Although the use of AI has been well-established in other industries to optimize supply and demand matching, the introduction of AI to perform tasks remotely that were traditionally performed in-person by clinical staff represents a significant milestone in healthcare operations strategy.

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to high numbers of critically ill and dying patients in need of expert management of dyspnea, delirium, and serious illness communication. The rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome-Coronavirus-2 creates surges of infected patients requiring hospitalization and puts palliative care programs at risk of being overwhelmed by patients, families, and clinicians seeking help. In response to this unprecedented need for palliative care, our program sought to create a collection of palliative care resources for nonpalliative care clinicians. A workgroup of interdisciplinary palliative care clinicians developed the Palliative Care Toolkit, consisting of a detailed chapter in a COVID-19 online resource, a mobile and desktop Web application, one-page guides, pocket cards, and communication skills training videos. The suite of resources provides expert and evidence-based guidance on symptom management including dyspnea, pain, and delirium, as well as on serious illness communication, including conversations about goals of care, code status, and end of life. We also created a nurse resource hotline staffed by palliative care nurse practitioners and virtual office hours staffed by a palliative care attending physician. Since its development, the Toolkit has helped us disseminate best practices to nonpalliative care clinicians delivering primary palliative care, allowing our team to focus on the highest-need consults and increasing acceptance of palliative care across hospital settings.