In a hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU), the sickest patients receive round-the-clock care as they lie in beds with their bodies connected to a bevy of surrounding machines. This advanced medical equipment is designed to keep an ailing person alive. Intravenous fluids drip into the bloodstream, while mechanical ventilators push air into the lungs. Sensors attached to the body track heart rate, blood pressure, and other vital signs, while bedside monitors graph the data in undulating lines. When the machines record measurements that are outside of normal parameters, beeps and alarms ring out to alert the medical staff to potential problems.
While this scene is laden with high tech, the technology isn’t being used to best advantage. Each machine is monitoring a discrete part of the body, but the machines aren’t working in concert. The rich streams of data aren’t being captured or analyzed. And it’s impossible for the ICU team—critical-care physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and other specialists—to keep watch at every patient’s bedside.
The ICU of the future will make far better use of its machines and the continuous streams of data they generate. Monitors won’t work in isolation, but instead will pool their information to present a comprehensive picture of the patient’s health to doctors. And that information will also flow to artificial intelligence (AI) systems, which will autonomously adjust equipment settings to keep the patient in optimal condition.
At our company, Autonomous Healthcare, based in Hoboken, N.J., we’re designing and building some of the first AI systems for the ICU. These technologies are intended to provide vigilant and nuanced care, as if an expert were at the patient’s bedside every second, carefully calibrating treatment. Such systems could relieve the burden on the overtaxed staff in critical-care units. What’s more, if the technology helps patients get out of the ICU sooner, it could bring down the skyrocketing costs of health care. We’re focusing initially on hospitals in the United States, but our technology could be useful all around the world as populations age and the prevalence of chronic diseases grows.
The benefits could be huge. In the United States, ICUs are among the most expensive components of the health care system. About 55,000 patients are cared for in an ICU every day, with the typical daily cost ranging from US $3,000 to $10,000. The cumulative cost is more than $80 billion per year.
As baby boomers reach old age , ICUs are becoming increasingly important. Today, more than half of ICU patients in the United States are over the age of 65—a demographic group that’s expected to grow from 46 million in 2014 to 74 million by 2030. Similar trends in Europe and Asia make this a worldwide problem. To meet the growing demand for acute clinical care, ICUs will need to increase their capacity as well as their capabilities. Training more critical-care specialists is part of the solution—but so is automation. Far from replacing humans, AI systems could become part of the medical team, allowing doctors and nurses to deploy their skills when and where they’re needed most.
At Aloha Technology we are ready to provide the AI solution for your healtcare units. Just keep in touch with us.
Read original article on https://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/ai-could-provide-momentbymoment-nursing-for-a-hospitals-sickest-patients
While this scene is laden with high tech, the technology isn’t being used to best advantage. Each machine is monitoring a discrete part of the body, but the machines aren’t working in concert. The rich streams of data aren’t being captured or analyzed. And it’s impossible for the ICU team—critical-care physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and other specialists—to keep watch at every patient’s bedside.
The ICU of the future will make far better use of its machines and the continuous streams of data they generate. Monitors won’t work in isolation, but instead will pool their information to present a comprehensive picture of the patient’s health to doctors. And that information will also flow to artificial intelligence (AI) systems, which will autonomously adjust equipment settings to keep the patient in optimal condition.
At our company, Autonomous Healthcare, based in Hoboken, N.J., we’re designing and building some of the first AI systems for the ICU. These technologies are intended to provide vigilant and nuanced care, as if an expert were at the patient’s bedside every second, carefully calibrating treatment. Such systems could relieve the burden on the overtaxed staff in critical-care units. What’s more, if the technology helps patients get out of the ICU sooner, it could bring down the skyrocketing costs of health care. We’re focusing initially on hospitals in the United States, but our technology could be useful all around the world as populations age and the prevalence of chronic diseases grows.
The benefits could be huge. In the United States, ICUs are among the most expensive components of the health care system. About 55,000 patients are cared for in an ICU every day, with the typical daily cost ranging from US $3,000 to $10,000. The cumulative cost is more than $80 billion per year.
As baby boomers reach old age , ICUs are becoming increasingly important. Today, more than half of ICU patients in the United States are over the age of 65—a demographic group that’s expected to grow from 46 million in 2014 to 74 million by 2030. Similar trends in Europe and Asia make this a worldwide problem. To meet the growing demand for acute clinical care, ICUs will need to increase their capacity as well as their capabilities. Training more critical-care specialists is part of the solution—but so is automation. Far from replacing humans, AI systems could become part of the medical team, allowing doctors and nurses to deploy their skills when and where they’re needed most.
At Aloha Technology we are ready to provide the AI solution for your healtcare units. Just keep in touch with us.
Read original article on https://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/ai-could-provide-momentbymoment-nursing-for-a-hospitals-sickest-patients
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