Developing valuable operational healthcare applications using quantum computing techniques

The project will research the feasibility of applying and commercially exploiting quantum computing techniques to address operational healthcare use cases (e.g. theatre list patient allocation, urgent care patient triage, community nurse visit schedules) through the development of one or more software applications. If successful, the product will be capable of serving both the UK and international healthcare markets.

The project seeks to exploit emerging quantum computing technology in a new and important area of application. In the project we will:

* Identify several valuable use cases which will deliver improved care for patients and help healthcare providers, e.g. hospitals, organise their patient activity more efficiently to make the greatest possible use of scarce resources such as operating theatres, diagnostic equipment and outpatient consulting rooms.
* Investigate in depth the potential for quantum computing methods to address the use cases for problem sizes are that beyond the sizes that can be dealt with by classical computing software by undertaking a technical evaluation.
* Make an overall business assessment of the feasibility of developing classical-quantum applications for the targeted use cases and specifically when this may be possible based on the rate of advance of quantum hardware/methods.

We will explore a range of quantum methods on different quantum hardware seeking to find the optimum performance possible on today's technology. We will also be considering how best to combine quantum and classical methods to maximise the overall performance of the potential applications.

This is a highly innovative project combining experts in quantum computing (Applied Quantum Computing and National Quantum Computing Centre), healthcare specialists (The PSC) and an important end user participant (Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust).