UW Medicine is set to open 40 innovative “smart rooms” at Harborview Medical Center this spring, leveraging sensors, screens and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the care experience for patients and staff alike.
The first 20 single-patient smart rooms are scheduled to open in early April in the seventh-floor intensive care unit of the Maleng Building. In early May, another 20 smart rooms will open in Maleng’s fourth-floor acute care unit.
The innovations include:
- Interactive patient consoles that enable video calls, messages, entertainment and a digital care board, which keeps patients updated on their care team members, medications and the next steps in their treatment plan.
- AI-powered sensors that can monitor patients at risk of falling to ensure they don’t get out of bed without assistance.
- Virtual nursing stations that support remote monitoring and telehealth visits, enabling care teams to work smarter not harder.
- Wearable alarms that allow staff to summon help fast.
Patient and staff experiences at Maleng Building will inform how UW Medicine designs hundreds of other hospital rooms over the next several years.
