Imagine a monitor that notices a patient is heading for trouble long before the numbers look alarming to the human eye. That is what Netcare, South Africa's largest hospital group, has just asked the health-products regulator, SAHPRA, to license, after running a clinical study in its intensive- and high-care units.
How it works
The tool is a machine-learning model that reads a patient's real-time vital signs — heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels and breathing — to predict a dangerous downturn before it becomes obvious. It is designed to catch events like heart failure, respiratory failure, sepsis or a dangerous heart rhythm, and Netcare's Professor Reitze Rodseth says it can give staff an eight- to ten-hour window to act. Built with German clinical-AI firm TCC in a partnership running since 2023, and refined over almost three years with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, it took years precisely because the team had to prove it works and is safe.
Not the AI boogeyman
Handing patient monitoring to an algorithm invites obvious worry, and Rodseth is quick to head it off: “We don't need to be scared of the AI boogeyman... It's only a support. It's an additional safety layer.” The treatment decision, in other words, stays with the doctor. He is candid about the limits, too — noting that a model built on one population can lose accuracy when applied to another, which is part of why the work was slow.
The push fits a broader strategic shift toward data- and AI-driven care under Netcare CEO Dr Richard Friedland. And it is a big canvas to test on: Netcare runs 49 acute hospitals with almost 10,000 beds, plus 15 mental-health hospitals with about 1,100 beds through its Akeso division. In the six months to end-March, paid-patient growth was a thin 0.7%, while mental-health patient days rose 3.4%. Netcare says this is only the start: models for kidney failure, emergency-department admissions and ICU readmission are already in development, and Corsano wearable watches are monitoring thousands of at-risk patients. Whether SAHPRA signs off — and Netcare hopes for a yes within three to six months — is the next thing to watch.
