In the wake of several challenging years for healthcare, health IT conference-goers showed up at the 2024 HIMSS exhibit with renewed enthusiasm and a discerning eye on ROI.
Attendees from healthcare institutions across the globe convened in Orlando, March 3-6, to explore solutions for “creating tomorrow’s health,” as the conference theme promised. The forum offered providers an opportunity to consider future-state possibilities and fresh approaches to persistent problems like process inefficiency and staffing challenges. AI and hybrid care solutions were on tap to answer both needs.
Responsible AI and the Hospital Room of the Future
In healthcare’s post-pandemic era, augmented intelligence and hybrid care models are bringing additional dimensions to the patient care team. The embrace of virtual care and AI at the patient bedside is redefining what we consider to be table stakes in care delivery.
Like the ViVE conference that drew healthcare stakeholders to the West Coast in the weeks prior, HIMSS24 showcased an overwhelming array of health AI innovations. As Caregility COO Mike Brandofino observed, you couldn’t walk the conference floor without bumping into an AI company.
“The hospital room of the future is really about how you can use sensors in the room to augment information for the caregivers, thereby stretching what they can do,” said Brandofino.
“Our approach is what we call responsible AI. What we’ve done is focused on how we can enhance the information that’s getting to the caregiver. Things like vitals scanning – can we, just through an image of the patient’s face, get the blood pressure of the patient and give that to the clinician who is looking at the patient right now?”
Those solutions are closing care gaps, improving care quality for patients, and saving time for care teams. “We notify caregivers of changes that they need to pay attention to,” said Brandofino. “We don’t want to replace the caregivers. What we want to do is augment the information they have so they can spend more time maximizing their certification.”
Caregility’s “Intelligent Hospital Room of the Future” conference exhibit demonstrated ways health systems are using virtual collaboration, AI, and digital health integrations to build next-gen hybrid care models like radar-supported Virtual Nursing and computer vision-assisted Virtual Patient Observation.
A Hippocratic Oath for Health AI
Still, some providers are wary of adopting nascent technologies without proof of value and some reassurance.
As momentum builds for AI regulation on a national level, healthcare leaders are rising to meet the call for accountability within the medical field. During HIMSS24, Microsoft announced the creation of the Trustworthy & Responsible AI Network (TRAIN), “which aims to operationalize responsible AI principles to improve the quality, safety, and trustworthiness of AI in health.”
Fellow members of the TRAIN consortium include over a dozen leading health systems, OCHIN, and TruBridge. The group will share AI best practices, provide tools to enable the measurement of AI-related outcomes, and facilitate the development of “a federated national AI outcomes registry that will capture real-world outcomes related to efficacy, safety, and optimization of AI algorithms.”
As AI transparency initiatives unfold, the 2025 conference circuit could see a new system of checks and balances in place to help providers vet vendor offerings. For its part, HIMSS24 presented promising paths forward for providers keen on balancing innovation and ethics.
Caregility to Showcase the “Intelligent Hospital Room of the Future” at HIMSS24
EATONTOWN, NJ (March 7, 2024) – Caregility, a pioneer in enterprise telehealth solutions, is excited to showcase its Intelligent Hospital Room of the Future at the 2024 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, taking place in Orlando, Florida, March 11-15. The installation, located at Caregility booth 4121, will highlight innovative technologies that are helping health systems transform clinical workflows to improve the care experience for patients and clinicians.
AI-ready telehealth edge devices purpose-built for cost-effective, large-scale deployments that allow hospitals to leverage existing networks and in-room patient engagement platforms to extend virtual care and AI capabilities to every patient’s bedside.
A self-healing telehealth platform with a proven track record of supporting millions of virtual care sessions annually that centralizes device fleet management and telehealth program and user administration.
Intuitive care applications designed by clinicians for clinicians that streamline one-on-one and one-to-many workflows such as Virtual Nursing and Virtual Patient Observation.
Responsible AI enhancements that augment patient safety, clinical insight, and operational value using computer vision, radar-based sensors, and sound analytics.
Intelligent integrations with leading EHRs and nurse call systems, plus connected care devices like digital stethoscopes to share patient data with remote clinicians in real-time.
The Intelligent Hospital Room of the Future unlocks more efficient ways for care teams to field and standardize common tasks that can effectively be completed remotely, helping to offset staffing challenges and reduce stress on bedside clinicians. “Together, these solutions elevate the standard of care, improving patient satisfaction and creating a foundation for hybrid care model innovation,” said Caregility CEO Ron Gaboury.
As part of the exhibit, Caregility will demonstrate its first dual-camera telehealth edge device, the new APS200 Duo, for the first time. This intelligent telehealth endpoint includes AI-ready computer processing power, a wide-angle camera for patient observation, and a high-definition 40x zoom camera for supporting Virtual Nursing and other hybrid care programs such as Tele-ICU.
Visitors at booth 4121 can also explore integrated solution offerings from Caregility Cloud™ ecosystem partners, including virtual clinical services from Equum Medical and Hicuity Health, and interpreter services from LanguageLine Solutions. Attendees can also preview several integrated AI capabilities, including:
Augmented Observation tools that help remote sitters keep at-risk patients safe, protect floor staff, and prevent disoriented patients from wandering.
Vitals Trending tools that provide continuous, longitudinal insight into resting heart and respiratory rates to help care teams detect patient deterioration earlier and intervene faster.
Vitals Scanning tools that use computer vision technology to remotely measure a patient’s blood pressure as well as heart and respiratory rates during virtual visits and exams.
HIMSS24 attendees are invited to tour the Intelligent Hospital Room of the Future at Caregility booth 4121 to learn more about how health systems are transforming the future of healthcare delivery through hybrid care enablement. Learn more at www.caregility.com/HIMSS-2024.
About Caregility Caregility (caregility.com) is a telehealth solution provider connecting care everywhere. Designated as the Best in KLAS® Virtual Care Platform (non-EMR) in 2021, 2022, and 2023, Caregility Cloud™ brings bedside care, virtual encounters, and AI capabilities together at the point of care. Doctors, nurses, and patients around the world rely on our intelligent telehealth edge devices and virtual nursing, observation, and engagement applications to enhance clinical insights, patient safety, and efficiency. Trusted by over 75 health systems, deployed in more than 1,000 hospitals, and supporting over 30,000 connected devices and millions of virtual sessions annually, Caregility is helping to transform healthcare delivery across inpatient, outpatient, and home settings.
