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Healthcare Technology in 2023—from Telehealth Equipment to Smart Wearables

By Maggie Chu

The rapid pace of technology adoption is occurring in all industries, including in healthcare. In large part due to the COVID pandemic preventing people from having in-person access to medical resources, the aid of technology has helped broaden the reach of practitioners and increase options for patients. In the year 2023, we will look at some recent trends in healthcare technology, including telehealth, automation, and wearable technology.

Telehealth

Telehealth has risen in importance due to COVID, but it also shines by providing those with fewer medical resources with a fast, efficient way of receiving medical treatment.

For instance, diabetics often require routine eye examinations by an ophthalmologist specializing in diabetic retinopathy, making it particularly difficult for older diabetics living in rural areas. Many manufacturers developed telehealth suitcases and telehealth carts, both of which are suitable for different application environments. The telehealth suitcase is suitable for emergency situations or pop-up clinics with limited space. It can hold a tablet, keyboard, speaker, and smaller medical devices like stethoscopes, wireless ultrasounds, and funduscopes. On the other hand, the telehealth cart is a great option for institutions in rural areas or with scarce resources to connect with specialized practitioners remotely. Generally, the telehealth cart comes with a high-definition PTZ camera, computer, and speaker along with an adjustable medical cart. This configuration allows for high-quality two-way communication for medical professionals to provide care remotely, saving patients time from long travel and waits in healthcare facilities.

Automation in Healthcare

Hospital workers are often overwhelmed in their daily routines, making automation a great choice for hospitals, with applications ranging from medical notetaking to sterilization.

Documenting a patient’s condition is a time-consuming, repetitive, yet necessary task for medical practitioners. With the rise of voice assistants, the input of this data can be simplified and completed automatically. Though doctors have long utilized medical transcription services and voice recognition technology to complete transcription tasks, AI-powered speech-to-text systems can now recognize and make clinical documentation during the consultation itself, so doctors can spend less time on administration and more time on patients, reducing clinical burnout and increasing patient satisfaction.

For hospital room sterilization, automation can also be used to ensure a sanitary environment for both patients and staff. Automated room disinfection (ARD) systems can reduce human errors, reduce the possibility of cross-infection, and free up time for hospital staff so they can focus on more pressing issues.

Health Wearables

Wearable devices are changing the way we interact with our health, giving us real-time data on our physiological well-being regarding sleep, heart, blood oxygen levels, and other metrics. They help us keep track of our overall health conditions, playing a helpful role in disease prevention or even disease management. Particularly outstanding in the prevention of cardiovascular conditions like arrhythmia, hypertension, and strokes, we see a study using Fitbit trackers to predict undiagnosed atrial fibrillation patients. Other wearable devices capable of tracking patient health include glasses, shoes, and even clothing that Incorporate smart textiles. These innovations will give people a better sense of their own health and help people make healthier choices in their daily lives.

Applying Tech for Easier, Better Healthcare

Health technology can help improve the lives of patients all over the world by making checkups easier and tracking health metrics while simplifying the workflows of physicians and nurses. Especially for areas with a shortage of physicians and nurses, these technologies can help doctors reach a larger patient base and provide high-quality care to patients.

As we see healthcare systems adopting these new technologies and making their institutions smarter to cope with healthcare challenges, practitioners and authorities alike should be aware of how to responsibly and ethically use these systems while being compliant with regulations. When we have advanced technology and proper regulations in place, we are sure to see a great step forward in the healthcare industry.

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.


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Connected Health: The Future of Healthcare

By Stephanie Pan

We have covered both Telemedicine and Telehealth in our previous AVer Experts, but we still haven’t introduced a term that has been increasingly used in recent years, and that is “Connected Health”. At the moment, there is no standard or universally accepted definition of what Connected Health is; however, a commonly referenced definition was given by researchers Caulfield and Donnelly, in which they stated that “Connected Health encompasses terms such as wireless, digital, electronic, mobile, and telehealth and refers to a conceptual model for health management where devices, services or interventions are designed around the patient’s needs, and health-related data is shared, in such a way that the patient can receive care in the most proactive and efficient manner possible.” In other words, it can be seen as an umbrella term for concepts such as telehealth, telemedicine, mobile health (mHealth), and more. It can also be defined as connecting every stakeholder, whether it be doctors, nurses, or patients, through various technologies and means of sharing information in regard to the patient’s status and well-being.

With how rapid information and communication technologies are advancing, there is a paradigm shift in the healthcare industry, suggesting that predictive and pre-emptive healthcare solutions should not only be personalized but also pervasive. While there are a lot of topics that we can tackle regarding Connected Health, we will start off with the basics for today as an introduction to this new model of healthcare delivery that is enabled by technology.

Why is Connected Health Important?

To understand what Connected Health is, it’d be better to start by knowing its essential concept first. Connected Health is thought to be a more proactive model of healthcare delivery compared to its more traditional counterparts in the sense that medical technologies and services are designed around the patient’s needs. What this means is that it puts the patient at the center of the entire process, regardless of their location or circumstances. In doing so, Connected Health, or more specifically the tools of Connected Health, has the potential to not only empower clinicians with more efficient and up-to-date data but also encourage patient engagement by providing them with key information at the tip of their fingertips. Connected Health is also especially relevant today because of the ongoing global pandemic. Due to Covid-19, many healthcare deliveries are affected, causing patient management to be difficult to maintain. As such, Connected Health is becoming an indispensable source of these issues, especially for patients with the coronavirus or chronic illness that require routine follow-ups and monitoring. What’s more, is that evidence from meta-analyses and systemic reviews have already been reported to support this claim.

Enhancing Patients and Healthcare Experience

Aside from its relevance, Connected Health is also helpful in improving patient care and overall patient experience. As you’d probably guess, this is mostly achieved via the tools of Connected Health. Currently, the most common tools include mobile healthcare apps, wearable devices, connected medical devices, interoperable medical ICT systems, and remote patient monitoring technologies. Through these tools, the patient’s needs, and health status can be constantly monitored across different clinical settings, leading to earlier interventions and fewer possibilities of adverse events. Additionally, wearable devices and mobile apps can also help identify individuals that are at risk by monitoring their vital signs and symptoms in real-time. This information can then be shared with the healthcare professionals, allowing them to deliver preventative care in a proactive and timely manner. To top it off, patients having access to their health status also allows them to feel more in control, which in turn increases their self-efficacy and satisfaction.

While there is definitely room for growth and improvement in the future, Connected Health is undoubtedly a dynamic and fast moving area of digital health that holds the potential to transform healthcare for the better.
Last Updated: June 21, 2024

About the Author

Stephanie Pan is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts.

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Artificial Intelligence in Action: Real-World Applications

By Maggie Chu

AI is undoubtedly the biggest buzzword these days, since the release of ChatGPT last year and then reaching an all-time high at Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s Computex keynote. Now, people are anticipating what comes next for AI and what it can do for humanity, signaling an imminent change in how we as humans conduct our day-to-day lives.

In the past few months, we’ve seen more AI applications in the tech world, showcased in major exhibitions and used in everyday consumers’ lives. We’ll outline some of the more interesting applications that we noticed in business, health, food, and entertainment.

Business

AI is often used in business conferencing settings, incorporated into cameras and conferencing software. In providing different video conferencing display options like Smart Gallery, AI helps detect participants’ faces and displays them in equal proportions, facilitating an efficient, natural communication process. By ensuring that the face of each participant is visible to everyone, participants can communicate more freely and clearly.

Also, more businesses like Aira are creating AI facial recognition solutions for surveillance and workforce management systems. Placed at an entrance, the AI systems are applied in contactless access control, capable of recognizing employees, maintaining attendance records, registering visitor information, and identifying VIPs and blacklisted individuals. Some systems even include fever screening to maintain healthier work environments.

Health

For patient-doctor communication, AI applications exist in medical cameras to improve doctor-patient communication in telehealth. As acoustics during a telemedicine session can affect the communication process and sometimes even the diagnosis, AI use in acoustics reduces unwanted noise and provides clearer audio to improve communication. These cameras have high-quality audio and high-resolution lenses for the best presentation of details, so doctors can make better clinical decisions for their patients.

Because of the pandemic, many brands like MSI have spent time and resources developing disinfection robots for indoor areas. Many machines incorporate AI for site surveys, navigation route planning, human detection, and air and surface UV sterilization. This easily keeps the indoors clean and safe from viruses and bacteria, and in the future, people could potentially apply the technology to other special sites that would require disinfections, like hospitals or laboratories.

Food

Some brands are creating machines that sort food in the preliminary stages of food production. When raw materials such as coffee beans are obtained, they often need to undergo a selection process to eliminate beans with deficiencies like discoloration, fermentation, mold, and insect damage. Workers that do this manually would need to undergo repetitive work for long hours, which is time-consuming and mentally draining. An AI bean sorter would then organize the beans into good and defective beans automatically and accurately, eliminating the painful process of handpicking good and defective beans before roasting. This type of technology can be leveraged in other food processes in the future for factory quality control and other selection processes.

In restaurants, food ordering and preparation could be automated through AI, with companies like LaFresh creating kiosks equipped with multilanguage AI voice recognition so customers can speak to place orders. For store management, AI can calculate and forecast food usage, and in turn, reduce food waste and financial waste. AI can create and optimize complex processes in any food industry application, assisting to sift through large amounts of data efficiently and automatically.

Entertainment

For live performances, AI camera tracking technologies can follow specific performers to automatically stream and film performances without manual operation. These cameras can operate under different tracking modes, automatically adjusting the framing to catch the best angles of the performance.

On video platforms like YouTube, many have incorporated AI into their video screening process, helping workers to flag or remove inappropriate content. Though not perfect, it undoubtedly processes a significant amount of video content quicker than a human does, speeding up the identification of videos that do not comply with platform standards.

In gaming, generative AI can now be used to assist game developers in building NPC characters, creating convincing backstories and animation for the characters. This opens a whole new world to gamers as the games are no longer strictly limited to what the developers’ script says, allowing games to unfold with many more possibilities.

What Could an AI Future Look Like?

We’ve only mentioned a few uses of AI in four select areas, but in the future, there will be many more use cases in all industries, streamlining different areas of our lives. Soon, we could be using AI voice control to automate camera operations during a video conference or presentation, employing AI image analysis to support medical examinations and food processing, and utilizing AI to create videos, movies, and games. In the distant future, the applications of generative AI could be even more extensive and bring even greater convenience to our lives. With these possibilities in mind, which AI applications are you the most excited about?
Last Updated: June 20, 2024

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.

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Intensive Care Redefined: Telemedicine’s Transformative Role in the ICU

By Willis Leo

The image of an ICU nurse vigilantly monitoring patients has long been the cornerstone of intensive care. However, the healthcare landscape is changing rapidly, and with it, the very boundaries of where critical care is delivered.

In this article, discover how tele-ICU improves patient outcomes, expands care access, and offers work-life balance for nurses. Learn about challenges, best practices, and the technology shaping the future of intensive care.

Telemedicine in the ICU: Enhancing Intensive Care Delivery

Fundamentally, there are three main uses for Telemedicine: (1) extending coverage (e.g. Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) providing care to patients who would otherwise have limited access to specialists); (2) improving compliance (monitoring patients’ adherence to treatment plans); and (3) facilitating transfers (when specialists consult with one another on transferring a patient to another facility).

Tele-ICU nurses leverage real-time video and audio feeds from strategically placed cameras to remotely review medical records, analyze data, interpret vital signs, tackle complex patient situations with colleagues, and perform routine and unscheduled patient surveillance.

For telehealth practitioners, remote patient monitoring (RPM) offers a unique path to career development and specialization. Moreover, tele-intensive care provides greater flexibility and work-life balance than traditional settings, which appeals to nurses who want a different work dynamic. Meanwhile, offsite help can reduce stress for bedside nurses by providing additional support and expertise to ease workloads.

Challenges and Best Practices in Tele-Intensive Care

While tele-intensive care offers numerous benefits for an organization, it also presents unique challenges:

  • Physical limitations: Nurses who are used to working in a traditional bedside setting may find it difficult to adjust to the virtual environment. They may be frustrated by the inability to physically assess and intervene with patients. Additionally, virtual and bedside teams can mix up information during shift changes, especially when nurses are busy.
  • Building trust: Gaining acceptance and collaboration from bedside nurses can be challenging initially. Communication and language barriers can be more complex in a virtual setting, with a greater need for clear and concise instructions and accurate interpretation. Poor video and audio equipment can magnify these pain points, for example, due to latency caused by slow Internet speed or the inability to see true-color images and video.
  • Isolation: Working in a remote environment and long hours of screen time can lead to feelings of isolation.

To address these challenges, leadership support is needed to successfully integrate the virtual and on-site teams. Drawing from case studies, some proven strategies include:

  • Shared governance: Fostering collaboration through outreach programs and shared decision-making so tele-ICU nurses are not forgotten and thought of as just faces on computer screens.
  • Healthy workplace initiatives: Providing resources for stress and ergonomics management (workstation setups alleviating back, shoulder, neck, and vision strains from prolonged computer use).
  • Continued education: Ensuring tele-ICU nurses stay up-to-date on bedside workflows and technological advancements.

Leadership buy-in and understanding the challenges are a great start, as are technological considerations that enable tele-ICU nurses to reach their full potential.

Advanced Equipment Empowering Tele-ICU Nurses

The integration of technologies like AVer’s PTZ cameras in tele-ICU settings, as seen in a private hospital in New Taipei City, highlights the broader trend of how advanced equipment is transforming ICU nursing. PTZ cameras, like AVer’s medical-grade certified IEC 60601-1-2, offer two-way communications and minimize the need for nurses to move frequently between stations. By streamlining workflow, nurses can spend more time directly helping patients, potentially leading to lower mortality rates and shorter hospital stays thanks to timely interventions.

Beyond audio-visual advancements, other technological innovations are also making significant contributions. For instance, wearable patient monitoring devices and automated medication dispensers reduce manual tasks and minimize medication errors; smart beds gather real-time patient movement data and vital signs; and remote telemetry enables continuous cardiac monitoring. Integrating these devices with electronic health records (EHR) software is key to smoother care coordination and reducing miscommunications during shift handovers.

Collectively, these technologies not only streamline operations but also allow nurses to focus on intensive care tasks, enhancing patient outcomes through earlier intervention and more informed decision-making.

Shaping the Future of Tele-ICU: Healthcare Policies and Global Initiatives

As the global focus on patient care intensifies, so does the pace of advancements in healthcare, telehealth technologies, and an emphasis on healthcare reforms. Across Europe, substantial investments in healthcare infrastructure, exemplified by initiatives like the UK’s NHS Long Term Plan, Italy’s national health system upgrade, and Germany’s Hospital Future Act (KHZG), signal a movement toward integrating advanced healthcare technologies as well as digitalization and modernization of national healthcare system. The future of tele-ICU and healthcare in general is poised to be as transformative as it is inclusive, moving us closer to a reality where quality healthcare knows no boundaries. Explore how AVer’s Connected Health Solutions offer a win-win for everyone involved and the future of the ICU.

About the Author

Willis Leo is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. He crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts.

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Advancing Continuing Medical Education: The Role of Telehealth Cameras in CME

By Emily Lee

With medical science and technology advancing at an increasingly rapid rate, it is more important than ever that doctors, nurses, and support staff stay up to date with continuing medical education. Continuing medical education (CME) can refer to educational activities which help to maintain and increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance of medical health professionals. This can be in the form of formal courses, seminars, lectures, online classes, and workshops.

In this article, we examine the evolution of CME and current CME trends, investigating the shortcomings of the current methods and overcoming them by leveraging technologies such as telehealth cameras.

The Evolution of CME Delivery Methods

Over the years, CME has evolved from traditional, in-person lecture-based formats to dynamic, technology-enhanced learning experiences. Studies have shown live media to be more effective than print and multimedia formats more effective than single-media formats.

The ongoing advancement of educational research and technologies paves the way for more innovative and interactive delivery methods, including:

  • Interactive online courses
  • Webinars
  • Multimedia content
  • Virtual simulations
  • Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)

The Challenges for Medical Professionals

Despite the aforementioned advancements in CME, significant challenges in continuing medical education remain for medical professionals, highlighting the ongoing need for improvements to ensure and sustain physician competency and performance.

Professional Practice Gaps

According to the ACCME, a professional practice gap is defined as the “difference between current health care processes or outcomes observed in practice, and those potentially achievable on the basis of current professional knowledge”.

A practice gap can be categorized into one or more of the following types:

  • Knowledge (does not know)
  • Skill (does not know how)
  • Practice (does not do)

Through performing gap analyses, medical professionals can effectively understand and begin to reduce the practice gap through CME, enabling the identification of areas for improvement and ultimately the achievement of improved patient care and safety.

Barriers to CME

Aside from practice gaps, medical professionals face many barriers to accessing Continuing Medical Education (CME). A 2021 survey with US clinicians indicates that expenses and travel time are the main barriers to CME, with 68% citing costs and 57% highlighting travel time as a significant concern.

With the existing barriers, medical professionals might be restricted from accessing the educational resources they need, thereby limiting their physician competency and performance.

“We should explore options that reduce barriers of time and money, and creatively use online tools to publicize new offerings.”

Bridging the Gap in CME with Telehealth Cameras

To solve the issues that medical practitioners face, CME has been moving online to improve accessibility, relying heavily on commercial general-use devices such as smart glasses and video conferencing cameras to satisfy the extensive demand for recording or streaming CME content. Medical professionals found several notable disadvantages when using these devices, including unstable image quality, the need for an additional audio device, and the inability to zoom in and capture the intended view. These limitations restricted the delivery of educational content.

When the pandemic struck, telehealth cameras were suddenly thrust to the forefront of the medical industry. Having undergone significant technological upgrades, telehealth cameras are being integrated into CME, most notably its use in surgical live-streaming, marking a pivotal shift in how medical education is delivered.

Applications of telehealth cameras in CME now include:

  • Live Surgical Demonstrations – Telehealth cameras can stream live surgeries and procedures through high-quality video, allowing learners to observe techniques and ask questions in real time, providing a first-hand learning experience.
  • Recorded Sessions for On-Demand or Online Learning – Telehealth cameras can record educational sessions with high image quality, making them available for on-demand or online viewing. This supports self-paced learning and revisiting complex topics.
  • Remote Workshops and Training – They enable the conduct of interactive workshops such as medical simulation training where participants can practice clinical skills under the guidance of experts, even from remote locations.

About the Author

Emily Lee is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts.

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A Medical Grade PTZ Camera to Revolutionize Patient Monitoring

By Maggie Chu

In recent years, hospitals and nursing homes have been having a hard time caring for patients and residents due to limited caregivers. With this problem in mind, AVer has been dedicated to creating with our capabilities a tool to enable healthcare professionals to achieve better patient care, hence the birth of the MD120UI, the first medical-grade PTZ camera designed for patient monitoring.

In this article, we interviewed AVer product manager Andrew Lee on the newly launched MD120UI, delving into the intricacies of the device and exploring its capabilities, benefits, and the profound impact it promises to have on healthcare facilities worldwide.

Q: Could you tell us what specifically inspired the creation of the MD120UI?

A: In the medical world, currently there are a few major issues encountered by healthcare professionals.

First off, the global population is getting older. More elderly people need care, yet there are limited people who can provide that care, whether it’s in nursing homes or hospitals. This brings us to another important issue—the global nursing shortage. Especially after COVID, people are reluctant to pursue nursing as a career, so those already working as nurses are encountering more work and longer hours, often leading to high burnout rates that exacerbate the problem. If the problem continues at the current trajectory, the US will have a shortage of 13 million nurses by 2030. The situation has worsened to the point that many hospitals are resorting to reducing inpatient capacity to lessen the strain on their nurses, even though there are more people who need care.

We realized that health workers spend much of their time doing rounds to check on patients, and with our camera capabilities, we saw that we could create value by letting them check on their patients remotely. If we combined high-quality imaging technology, providing medical practitioners instant access to any patient from the nursing station or even on their mobile devices, we could help alleviate a lot of pressure on hospitals. So that’s why the MD120UI was created.

Q: Could you briefly introduce us to the MD120UI and its main advantages?

A: The MD120UI is the first medical grade PTZ camera designed for patient monitoring. In recent years, hospitals have been focusing on integrating medical data into nursing station systems, so that nurses can monitor the vital signs of many patients at the same time. Now, nursing stations are shifting focus to incorporating video as well, because many conditions aren’t obvious when monitoring data but are clear as night and day when you see the patients in real-time. Products on the market currently, like security cameras, don’t generate high-quality imaging, but the MD120UI offers exceptional imaging capabilities with a great zoom lens and AI eye tracking functionality.

The MD120UI also supports PoE+, which means it can receive power over Ethernet. Rather than a mess of cables coming out from behind the device, PoE+ allows hospitals to have the MD120UI up and running with only one Ethernet cable, simplifying setup and lower the cost for installation significantly.

Before the launch of our medical grade cameras, we always have actual hospitals test out our products to ensure proper product functionality and satisfaction of the medical practitioners. By the time we launch our medical grade cameras, the products will have undergone meticulous testing and review by the hospital staff, they are the reason why we can keep offering top-of-the-line cameras with patient-centered design.

Q: We heard that this model’s AI features are impressive. Could you tell us more about what the MD120UI can do?

A: Straight out of the box, the MD120UI has built-in AI eye-tracking capability. The reason for developing this is after speaking with doctors and nurses, we learned that observing patients’ eyes can help detect signs of early stroke and other neurodegenerative disorders. The MD120UI has 20X Zoom capability, allowing doctors and nurses to examine patients’ eyes with extreme clarity from the nursing station or even from their mobile phones, with this tracking function, observing patients and assessing their conditions remotely can be much easier and quicker.

Other AI functionalities currently under development include AI Alert detection and Fall/Egress detection. The former is for health practitioners to be immediately alerted if an alarm in a patient ward goes off. Fall Detection is for ensuring patients who accidentally fall off their beds to receive immediate help while Egress Detection is for patients who attempt to escape the ward, particularly useful for monitoring elderly patients, dementia patients, or even suicidal patients. Elderly patients often want to leave the hospital and go home, while dementia patients cannot remember why they are in the hospital and simply attempt to leave. By detecting when patients fall off their bed or leave their bed, we can help prevent patients from accidental harm, preserving the health and safety of the patients.

Q: How did the team manage to develop the AI features? Did you encounter any issues in the development process?

A: In the development of eye tracking, we encountered some problems at first in identifying people with beards and people with masks on at first. In the beginning, our system would not be able to recognize faces with beards and masks as a face, and we had to teach our AI what faces with beards and masks looked like. After showing our system a larger database of images with bearded and masked people, our AI improved significantly and now has no problem with identifying the eyes of bearded or masked people, even in dark rooms using the camera’s infrared sensor.

Q: What software is the MD120UI compatible with?

A: If your hospital has a designated electronic health record (EHR) system, the MD120UI is compatible and can be easily integrated into most EHR systems, and we have established partnerships with many of the largest EHR vendors.

If your hospital does not utilize a specific EHR system, we created AVer Viewcare just for you. It is a basic software designed for hospitals that need an intuitive, easy-to-use system to manage their AVer cameras. One of the hospitals that has adopted AVer Viewcare gives us positive reviews of the system and tells us that it has all the necessary controls for a hospital that doesn’t integrate its camera system with its EHR systems. Viewcare will also be updated when we release new functions to cameras.

Also worth mentioning is that the MD120UI can be accessed through the PTZ Control Panel app for iPads or iPhones in the hospital, which is particularly useful when nurses or doctors are on the move but still need to check on specific patients.

Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to tell people about the MD120UI?

A: I’d like to reiterate that the MD120UI is a groundbreaking medical grade PTZ camera, emerging as a transformative solution for the pressing challenges faced by healthcare facilities worldwide. With an aging population and a shortage of healthcare providers, patient care has never been more demanding. The MD120UI addresses these concerns head-on, offering healthcare professionals a powerful tool to remotely monitor patients with exceptional imaging capabilities, AI features like eye tracking, and crucial functionalities like AI Alert Tracking and Fall Detection. AVer’s commitment to innovation shines through in this device, complemented by the user-friendly AVer Viewcare software, ensuring that healthcare facilities can adapt and thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of modern healthcare. We are confident that the MD120UI will bring progress and promise of a brighter future for patient care worldwide.

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.

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Hospitals Can Reduce Nurses’ Workloads via New Technologies

By Maggie Chu

Being a nurse is one of the most stressful and physically taxing professions one can pursue. Nurses accomplish a wide variety of tasks in the hospital, including assisting doctors in surgery, lifting patients up, charting patient health metrics, and scavenging for medical equipment, it requires both intelligence and stamina to care for patients properly. Especially after Covid, the heavy workloads, burnout, and stress in nursing are further contributing to growing nursing shortages.

Diving into this issue, a recent McKinsey report indicates nurses wish they could spend more time on patient care and less time on documentation and other support tasks. The good news is that there are many technologies nowadays that can assist nurses in providing better patient care and simplifying support tasks.

Patient Care

For patient care, there are multiple categories of products that can assist nurses in their day-to-day work. From patient monitoring cameras to medical robots, a variety of innovative devices can be utilized to ease the workload of nurses.

Medical-grade PTZ cameras are among the best devices used for patient monitoring. A video stream of the patient is extremely helpful in knowing the status of a patient, with many cameras capable of setting preset areas to look at, and now some cameras can zoom in up to 20 times. Other useful equipment includes the smart bed, which is extremely useful for tracking patient metrics, such as weight, movement, sleep, and vital signs. There are even patient care robots that provide emotional support, bathing, or even surgery assistance, all of which would help nurses achieve a higher level of care for all patients.

Charting and Documentation

A major task in a nurse’s day is charting and documenting patient metrics. Traditionally, this was done by pen and paper, but many have invested in digital transformation to build electronic health records (EHRs), which makes the data more easily accessible for those who need the information. Recording in a digital EHR by typing is still time-consuming, which is why more manufacturers are creating AI voice assistants for EHR systems. With the capability to listen and analyze information during patient visits, voice assistants can help record information immediately without the practitioner having to input data by hand, saving an immense amount of time and enabling nurses to focus on patient care and peer coaching.

Hunting and Gathering

Hunting and gathering take up around 45 minutes of a nurse’s day, and when added up, an astonishing estimate states that a 200-bed hospital could move “meals, linens, lab samples, waste, and other items the equivalent of 53 miles per day.” That amount of transportation could be better delegated to autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) like the TUG, which are essentially transportation robots that self-navigate with Li-DAR or other mapping technologies to deliver equipment and goods to the proper patients or practitioners. Some AMRs can even disinfect and administer medication.

Nurses Need Intuitive, Efficient Technology

Nurses are some of the most hardworking heroes in our healthcare system, and with new healthcare technologies available in the industry, hospitals should embrace them to alleviate nurses’ workloads. These technologies can help nurses in many ways, such as fostering better work environments for nurses, increasing nurse turnover, and reducing the rate of nurse burnout.

While these technologies will help nurses achieve more in less time, there are still some obstacles to technology adoption. One of the major issues is that some nurses, particularly those who are older in age, may feel that there are too many new technologies and practices to learn and adjust to. The next challenge for healthcare device manufacturers may be to create devices that are more intuitive so that nurses can quickly adapt to new technologies and immediately experience an increase in work efficiency, and we look forward to what technologies may bring to the future of healthcare.

About the Author

Maggie Chu is a Brand Communication Strategist at AVer Information, working out of Taipei, Taiwan. She crafts press releases, blog posts, and other marketing materials to support AVer’s global branding efforts. She has a black dog named Niuniu, who is ironically a scaredy cat.

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