First we had smartphones, then smartwatches. Now, we’re entering the age of smart hospitals.
Nvidia-backed health tech Artisight announced in July it had secured an additional $40 million on top of its previous $51.3 million in funding to accelerate the adoption of its AI-based smart hospital platform across the country.
Founded in 2015, Artisight’s platform puts its Nvidia graphics processing unit (GPU)-powered devices into patient rooms to monitor care, prevent safety issues, and enable remote collaboration across facilities.
CEO and co-founder Andrew Gostine told us the company plans to expand to about 1,000 more hospitals in the next 18 months. It’s currently in use at 417 hospitals, he said, including facilities in York, Pennsylvania-based WellSpan and Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine health systems.
Detection, prevention. Terri Couts, EVP and chief digital officer at New York and Pennsylvania provider the Guthrie Clinic, was originally drawn to Artisight to cut down on patient falls. Adverse events in US hospitals cost $17 billion each year, and falls are the largest category of reported adverse events, according to a 2023 study.
Before Artisight, the health system’s staff would identify which patients were high risk and then send workers to sit in the room with them, Couts said. Now, Artisight’s device is placed in patient rooms and uses a camera to alert clinicians if an at-risk patient gets out of bed.
Guthrie has reduced falls with injury by 40% YoY after implementing Artisight at the beginning of 2021, Couts said, and has saved money by reallocating staff to other tasks—an average of $6,480 per day for every 16 patients at higher risk of falling.
“The ROI is around the [staff]. Those hands that used to be in the room can now be doing other care-related activity,” she said.
Beyond falls, Gostine said the camera can monitor and see if a patient needs to be rotated in bed, whether patients have accidentally removed endotracheal tubes, and if staff washed their hands before entering the room.
The device has a communication element as well, which allows clinicians to video call patient rooms to give a care update or conduct remote nursing. For patients, it connects to their TVs to show them which clinicians are caring for them and offers translation services.
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With this range of uses, Couts said Artisight’s platform has helped with staff retention. Guthrie has a lot of new grad nurses in specialty care, and Artisight’s technology supports staff by connecting them with other clinicians so they can ask questions in real time.
This retention has helped the system save $7 million on traveling nurses, Couts said, and has cut additional spending on sign-on bonuses.
Safety, privacy. But having a camera in a hospital room is certainly new for many patients and staff.
“Our staff was a little more concerned about privacy than the patients were,” Couts said.
Gostine confirmed the cameras don’t record anything. Because the system is connected to Nvidia’s GPU, it can process information in real time without having to store it on a cloud and risk exposing patient information to potential hacks or cyberattacks.
The system also enhances staff safety, he said. For one, Artisight is connected to a clinician’s badge and has a button they can hit to alert security in dangerous situations. It also detects a code word the clinician can say when they need help.
Violence in hospitals costs an estimated $18.3 billion in 2023, the American Hospital Association reported. The association also reported that 16,990 hospital workers experienced nonfatal injuries or illness related to workplace violence, and an additional 8,740 hospital staffers had work activity affected or changed jobs due to workplace violence in 2022.
“A remote observer alerted nursing staff that a patient entered with a weapon,” Gostine said, noting one example of when the system caught a safety issue.
With this latest investment, Artisight is implementing a video language model that no longer requires someone to watch the camera feed. Using AI, the camera can take notes on what’s happening in a patient’s room.
“Instead of paying humans to watch the camera, we essentially pay algorithms,” Gostine said.