Behind VPO with Katia Galvane, Health Director everis Brazil
For the past month, in NTT Disruption we have been working together with everis Brazil to test NTT Disruption’s Virtual Patient Observation (VPO) solution in the Intensive Care Units of The Heart Institute (InCor) from the Clinical Hospitals, University of São Paulo Medical School, one of the world’s most recognized centers of academic and clinical excellence in cardio pneumology.
VPO utilizes video and artificial intelligence to detect and predict a patient’s predefined behaviors, movements, or actions, with alerts in real-time, providing a tool for nurses and doctors to make patient care safer and more efficient.
This week, we had the opportunity to speak with Katia Galvane, Health Director in everis Brazil. She has provided us very interesting insights about the implementation of the Proof of Concept and the benefits it will bring to the healthcare industry, both in Brazil as in the rest of the world.
How did the idea of VPO came about? How have everis Brazil and NTT Disruption worked on the project together?
VPO was created with the purpose of contributing to patient safety; a technological solution to support the workflow of healthcare professionals. Patient safety is a global health concern and a challenge that involves many aspects. We have identified some critical points where the adoption of technology can drive positive changes and improve healthcare outcomes.
One of the pains that we have observed in the hospital environment is the 24-hours patient monitoring. A large part of the monitoring requires a high level of attention and hours of health team dedication. In complex and very dynamic healthcare environments, such as intensive care units, ensuring that all patients are safe in their hospital beds is physically and psychologically demanding.
Gathering everis’ experience and expertise in the health sector and the disruptive innovation DNA of NTT Disruption, we have worked in a collaborative approach with this challenge in mind: “how can technology improve safety and patient care?”
This collaborative partnership has allowed us to build a powerful connection between technology and healthcare and thus enhance and foster ideas and further partnerships to transform and impact the health industry.
We have worked to transform the traditional monitoring concept into a technological tool that enables 24/7 patient-monitoring and brings the ability to identify and prevent risky situations. The VPO technology does not replace the face-to-face work of care teams, but it has the purpose to facilitate and share the responsibility of permanent monitoring.
To bring this idea to life, NTT Disruption brought together technological advances in artificial intelligence, and hardware acceleration. Everis, likewise, has been responsible for applying the technology in context, gathering health experts and users to collaborate in the development and improvement of this project. In this way, we have set a great partnership with the Heart Institute, an outstanding hospital in Brazil and well-known worldwide, to carry on a proof of concept (PoC) and validate the disruptive concept of virtual monitoring in hospitals.
What’s VPO value-added to society?
Technological advances, such as artificial intelligence, lead us to develop a more integrated health ecosystem, with more intelligent and efficient workflows and teams, centered on what really matters: the patient. In this scenario, we are confident that VPO will drive positive changes in healthcare processes within hospitals, with high impact in patient’s experience and health outcomes.
VPO will contribute to promoting patient safety, through risk anticipation and enabling early action or a faster response in case of an adverse event has occurred. In addition, the solution has also an economic impact, in terms of avoided expenses through the prevention of adverse events and more efficient use of resources.
As an integral part of the healthcare workflow and being able to be integrated with other types of technology in the future, VPO will encourage the reorganization of processes within the hospital. It will help enable the care team to focus on high added-value activities for the patient, such as active listening and nursing procedures, for example.
How does VPO benefit healthcare professionals?
Innovation in the hospital environment brings a powerful opportunity to involve care teams with technology and lead direct and indirect engagement and commitment to rethink and transform healthcare workflow and patient experience. By itself, it is an inclusive process that only works with a lot of collaboration and enthusiasm.
VPO is a potent technology that can lead to improvements both in care outcomes and in the experience of healthcare practitioners, as it shares with them the responsibility of permanent monitoring. VPO will not replace face-to-face care. But it will enable care teams to spend more time to direct patient care, which involves some skills that cannot be transferred, such as critical thinking (based on knowledge and experience) and human emotions.
Technology seeks to expand the way we think and promotes new opportunities and ideas. It is a permanent learning and collective construction built through the experience of professionals in both technology and health. Sharing knowledge, ideas, solutions, and difficulties benefits everyone involved. The connection between technology and health is visionary in a future that is constantly reinventing itself. Hybrid health care is more than a trend it is a fact!
How can VPO help in the context of the COVID19 pandemic?
Coping with COVID-19 has represented an exhaustive period in intensive care units and its impact has brought new challenges to health and technology. Making a safer environment improves all outcomes.
Patients with COVID-19 have singular features, involving multidisciplinary teams and a lot of daily learning. This situation creates an environment where the line of learning is not closed. Thus, technology must be used to support the healthcare workflow and to share with care teams’ part of the necessary and fundamental work demands within the hospital.
The team involved in our PoC has validated that about 30% of the daily work in the unit is focused on monitoring and observing the patient. Virtual monitoring can anticipate and avoid risks to patients and healthcare practitioners, in addition to bringing awareness to unknown risk situations.
It is very clear for everis and NTT Disruption’s team that the validation process that we are going through is a singular opportunity to think about this innovative concept and to design new ideas in collaboration with the hospital team. It is an exciting step towards a new future for hospitals in Brazil and worldwide.
