- The solution from Get Well aims to empower patients to take control of their healthcare journey.
- The solution leverages RTLS or RFID sensor data about those people and assets that come and go from a patient’s room, and provides personalized information based on that and other care information.
When Michael O’Neil was fighting cancer two decades ago, he experienced first-hand how confusing and frustrating it can be to navigate the treatment and care process. It’s even harder when you’re not feeling well.
For patients in the midst of healthcare, he pointed out, it can feel like the patient is on the outside, looking in on their treatment, with little voice or control.
O’Neil recovery from cancer inspired him to leverage the insights he gained about the healthcare process to launch Get Well, an interactive patient care solution that empower patients to take control over their healthcare journey. Two decades later, Get Well works with leading healthcare organizations and touches millions of patients and families around the world—the company listed continued and expanded deployment in 38 hospitals.
Get Well’s Smart Room platform leverages real-time locating system (RTLS) or RFID data capture methods, with AI to manage information in real time and to predict and trigger appropriate actions.
The platform includes features known as Signal Doorboards, Patient Pathways and Rounds+. Get Well integrates with a hospital’s real-time electronic health record (EHR) patient data to extend the experience throughout a patient’s Smart Room, including in-room videoconferencing and virtual care capabilities.
RTLS and RFID Provide Sensor Content
By using RTLS or RFID data, a hospital can gather information about who or what is entering and leaving the room. Some of the company’s recent customers are Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey; Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Dayton Children’s Hospital in Ohio; Life Bridge Health in Baltimore; and Nemours Children’s Health in Delaware.
People wearing badges and wristbands can be detected based on the unique ID on their sensor device, and that information can then be updated in the Smart Room software. Assets can also be tracked with the same technology, if a tag is applied to an object that enters or leaves the room.
With that information, based on RFID, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), or infrared transmissions, the system creates an automated view into what is taking place in each patient room.
“Get Well integrates with the vendors that supply RTLS solutions to consume data about the assets being tracked,” said O’Neil. “So we can trigger events such as changing the content of screens, illuminating lights, showing or pausing media,” as well as using the data to authenticate or verify who is in the room when they access our solution to perform tasks.
Signal Doorboards for Those Entering the Room
The experience starts outside of the room. As care providers walk the hospital halls, a tablet with touchscreen at the door of each patient room displays relevant data they would need to know before entering. That could include the patient’s identity, whether someone else is with them, or whether protective gear is needed.
In that way, healthcare providers or visitors know what the expect before they even enter the patient’s room.
In the room itself, the technology is designed to help healthcare organizations deliver patient and family centered care, O’Neil said— the kind most hospitals promotes about in their website mission statements.
Replacing the Old Fashioned TV
In the room itself, the system replaces something that O’Neil calls the laziest technology asset in the building—the TV. In fact, the TV is non-interactive and simply displays content and information for patients who feel well enough to turn it on and flip through the channels.
“We converted this patient TV into a desktop at the point of care on behalf of the patient,” he said. It is connected to Get Well’s software platform and integrated with the electronic health records EHR for patient specific information.
“In that way we transform the TV into a highly personalized individualized interactive desktop for the patient,” he said.
Digital White Boards
Two other components to the Smart Room are the Digital Whiteboard and Bedside Engagement.
The Digital Whiteboard replaces traditional grease boards, markers and erasers which staff required to list care details. Instead, the software displays content relevant both to the patient and family, and to the care team. That can include the care plans for the day, the patient’s goals for recovery or treatment, and the medications they are taking, as well as who has visited them recently.
Every time someone comes through the entrance of that room, as their badge is detected, (linked to that individual’s identity), their information is displayed on the board so the patient knows who has arrived and what they are there to do.
“It’s also interactive,” said O’Neill, so a physician can use the screen to pull up information such as an x-ray or other image without needing to go through a paperwork folder.
Bedside Engagement via Tablet or Phone
The solution includes a patient interface in the form of a tablet attached to a bed tray or a swing arm at the patient’s bed. They can use the touch screen to order meals, select a video or movie related to their recovery, or send a request for help.
Additionally, the data can be accessed by the patient or their family on their own mobile phone or device.
The entrance of an employee can trigger workflow instructions around hand hygiene and infection prevention. A physician and patient could both see a reminder that had washing hasn’t happened yet.
Using AI to Improve Care
Get Well builds AI into its software platform, to predict patient needs, identify important trends and provide recommendations, through a hospital’s own Oracle or EPIC software.
The software provides hospital management with dashboards that can help physicians prioritize their day. It could, for instance, display the 18 patients in the doctor’s rounds, how many of them are still waiting to be seen that day, who has ordered meals that were not delivered, or who is not ordering meals. It can display other details as well such as which patient is ready to be discharged and whether their ride has arrived.
With RFID or other sensors on assets, the system also knows where high value items like an infusion pump or specialized bed is located, sparing staff from physically searching for them.
AI Acting as a Roommate
“With AI continuing to advance you have hyper-personalization of these experiences around the point of care,” said O’Neil. Already the company is adding more AI functionality to its solution to create new personalized care use cases.
“We already have our engineers’ hands on keyboards across some really innovative use cases, in around the point of care, focused toward the patient and their experience—or toward the administrator at the hospital.”
O’Neil likens AI to having a knowledgeable and helpful roommate in the patient’s room, that is connected to that patient’s family and friends as well as caregivers to help explain what is happening in the complicated environment.
Going forward, he said, “we actually believe that at Get Well we have a chance to offer precision engagement,” for each unique patient and their entire care team.