The Future Of... Hospitals

Sound effects Sumi Das: Often chaotic and understaffed, a hospital can be a hectic place, but new technology is improving patient care, and in the future, dreaded doctor visits may be less stressful.

Music At El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California, healthcare providers are adopting the latest in medical advances. It starts at patient registration, which is made simpler with this biometric device. The Palm Secure System scans your palm's vein pattern, then accesses your medical records, meaning less paperwork for patients and fewer data entry errors. Doctors and nurses are always on the go. Rather than blasting pages over a PA system, Vocera offers a quieter option. Push a button on the badge and use voice commands to place a call.

Speaker: Call Lynn Taylor. Sumi Das: The recipient's badge announces the call.

Speaker: Can you talk to Cheryl Renking assumed spelling?

Speaker: Yes. Hi Cheryl.

Speaker: Oh, hi Lynn. Sumi Das: And the communication devices allow nurses to keep tabs on their patients.

Speaker: So if I'm a patient, and I'm hooked up to an EKG machine, and my heart starts to have an arrhythmia, the nurse is automatically notified via her Vocera.

Music Sumi Das: Throughout the hospital, many routine tasks are computerized. For example, in the lab, robotic lines automatically process and test blood samples. The results are sent electronically to physicians. Slightly more unexpected are the 20 robots called "tugs," which navigate the hospital halls, delivering medications, supplies, and packages.

Speaker: Your delivery has arrived. Sumi Das: These tugs never get lost.

Speaker: We literally load auto CAD, the digital plan files of the building into the computer that exists in the robot, so it has an onboard schematic of the building, and it navigates that through that plan.

Speaker: Calling elevator. Sumi Das: In the critical care unit, hospital beds are linguistically gifted. Simple questions often asked by nurses, such as where do you feel pain, can be played in 22 different languages, including Mandarin or Farsi.

Foreign language spoken These smart beds also ensure patients follow doctor's orders.

Speaker: In addition, it does have a fall-prevention mechanism, where if the patient is trying to get out of bed on their own, an alarm sounds so the staff can hear that alarm and then go prevent the patient from getting out of bed and falling.

Music Sumi Das: And thanks to new technology, a simple push of the button here can literally be a lifesaver. The Life Net System lets paramedics send EKG data from an ambulance to the hospital or even a doctor's smartphone. In the case of STEMI heart attack victims, when every moment counts, O.R.s can be prepped or a surgical team assembled before the patient arrives.

Music The future of hospitals, reducing errors, providing faster treatment, and delivering better patient care.

Music For Smart Planet, I'm Sumi Das.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====