Introducing the Next Step in Patient Care: The Intelligent Hospital Room
Peter Pronovost MD, PhD, FCCM
Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer, Veale Distinguished Chair in Leadership and Clinical Transformation
If you ask any bedside caregiver what they need at any given moment during the day, they will likely respond, “I would love an extra pair of hands.” That statement has rung true for years, but the staffing challenges brought on by the pandemic intensified the issue.?
One innovative way University Hospitals is addressing this concern is through the launch of the Intelligent Hospital Room Experiment, a project led by the Veale Initiative for Health Care Innovation. Featuring Vitalchat, this cutting-edge virtual care platform utilizes advanced cameras, microphones, and artificial intelligence (AI). This innovation will serve as a force multiplier for our caregivers, enhancing their ability to deliver superior care to our patients. ?
In this pilot, virtual nurses are UH nursing caregivers who turn on the room camera to have a face-to-face conversation through the monitor in the patient’s room. They can help complete the admission process, teach patients about new medications, or review discharge instructions with the patient and their family members. Because virtual nurses aren’t tasked with a physical patient assignment, they can take a few extra minutes to connect with the patient and their family to ensure they fully understand the next steps in their care.?
Though the pilot has only been underway for a few days, we have already learned a lot. We learned that our belief that an extra pair of hands would help has come true—in anticipated and unanticipated ways.?The extra help reduces the burdens of performing tasks, and the extra set of eyes identifies and removes errors that would have been invisible, such as the wrong medication, diet, or treatment. ??
领英推荐
We learned that these extra hands make patients more likely to ask for help. One patient shared that she was suffering in pain and unable to sleep during the evening because she knew the nurse was busy and did not want to bother her. We suspect that happens often.?Yet she said that with this technology, she knew there was an available nurse and reached out. She had her pain medication changed and slept peacefully.??
We learned that our care teams are innovative and are already thinking of new use cases and roles. All of the care team members share their ideas and figure out how to improve the system, often in real time.?We learned that innovation ignites energy.?The joy and excitement in the care teams are palpable. ? ??
We have much to learn, and together we will learn and improve. We are confident this will help our patients by reducing suffering, harm, and costs and help our caregivers reduce their burdens so they can continue to deliver compassionate care.?
This is one of scores of initiatives on our journey to Zero Harm.?Please join us on the journey.?
Perfusionist
4 个月Interesting!
SVP and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, at OhioHealth
4 个月Best wishes for continued learning and positive impact
Let’s start healing ourselves in healthcare to transform healthcare so that patients can heal and transform their lives #healthequity #patientadvocacy #traumainformed #patientsafety #activist #empathy #compassion #love
5 个月Thanks for sharing Dr Peter! I would be interested to know how fluid communications become through this process. As a medication history pharmacist, I do encounter the times I can be an extra hand when I visit to check on patients and interview caregivers. In the process of the interviewing, I learn so much about many things, such as health literacy level, beliefs about medical care, intricate relationships of #patients and caregivers, how #caregiving is split among #caregivers (often multiple as busy, young caregivers with children split the duties), other socioeconomic aspects that affect medication adherence, what they do with otc drugs, etc. (you may be surprised! Or not…) Because we focus on medication related talk, we can go deeper into what is happening at home. What is mind boggling to me is that no one knows what patients are taking at home exactly. There is so much missing. Patients identify pills by colors, don’t understand the importance or why they are taking, multiple caregivers and doctors are involved…it is chaotic and sounds crazy…but often no single person knows what is happening. Patients often don’t know what they are taking at home…can’t decipher the details if they rely on others for #medication management.
Entrepreneur
5 个月We just launched our flagship product the PortPouch. Please visit www.cathcareco.com for more information, supporting patients through IV catheter treatment, reducing the risk of dislodgement and infection.
Medical Director | Plan , Strategize, Collaborate & Commit For Best Possible Care To Every Child in Emergency Dept |
5 个月Interesting. Hope for the best to come out from the experiments