- Predictive models for the detection of risk of worsening in COVID, in-hospital falls and pressure ulcers, the virtual assistant and the project to alert deaf people, outstanding examples of innovation and digital transformation of the healthcare group
- The corporate head of Quality, Mireia Ladios, assures that “all the artificial intelligence projects that we have developed internally in recent years have changed the way we work”
The Ribera health group is currently applying different projects based on artificial intelligence in its hospitals. Mireia Ladios, Head of Quality of the Ribera healthcare group and Product Manager of Cynara in its technology subsidiary, futuRS, recently participated in the 2030st Artificial Intelligence Forum of the Alianza Digital XNUMX Foundation, as an outstanding example of the application of AI in the healthcare field. In this forum, the transformative power of AI was discussed as a lever for innovation, development and recovery for all types of companies and organizations, and Ladios had the opportunity to present some of the group's different artificial intelligence projects, developed thanks to his firm commitment by technology, innovation and digital transformation.
“We have two approaches to working with artificial intelligence: the first one comes from our own development that we have done in FutuRS, Ribera's technological subsidiary, and the second is what we do through collaboration with third parties”, explains Mireia about the strategy to implement artificial intelligence in the group. Having a company like FutuRS, in which a multidisciplinary team made up of engineers, mathematicians and health professionals works, makes it possible to tackle research projects with a 360 vision, to improve the quality of care that patients receive and also to facilitate work of the professionals. "We propose research projects that, once executed and validated, are integrated into our clinical history, Cynara, providing it with a cognitive, intelligent layer that helps professionals do things better", adds the Cynara Product Manager in FutuRS.
“With that idea, we now have six models working in real time within the clinical history. All of them have the objective of working on three problems: pressure ulcers, in-hospital falls and clinical worsening focused on the COVID patient”, point. All these projects are carried out with the purpose of applying them in hospitals and improving patient care, improving predictive and preventive medicine, but also facilitating the work of professionals. The detailed analysis of all the data allows the model to help the professional make decisions that, ultimately, will always be theirs, but can be supported by objective data to anticipate a worsening of the patient and also to avoid preventable adverse effects. "These models work without the need for professionals to retrieve more information and without the need to do an analysis, because they collect all of them," explains Mireia.
Thanks to the predictive model of pressure ulcers, the cumulative incidence has been reduced by 11% in the ICU. “The model is calculated at 07:00, 13:00 and 21:00, just before the healthcare personnel go to work so that they can adjust their care plan”,argues the person in charge of Ribera Quality. Regarding COVID, “During the first wave, FutuRS considered how it could help its health centers and developed a predictive model to identify which patients were most at risk of being admitted to the ICU, with the aim of giving the clinician the opportunity to readjust the therapeutic plan in the event of a poor evolution ; and support the manager in making decisions regarding the potential need for scarce resources”, says Ladios.
The second approach is based on collaboration with third parties, where a digital transformation process stands out, in which Ribera has been investing for several years through the Corporate program of Lanzadera, where they work with different startups, some of which base their initiatives on intelligence artificial. One of them is the case of Tucuvi. Lola is a virtual caregiver based on artificial intelligence and voice technology who makes phone calls to patients in the Home Hospitalization and Pneumology Unit of the Torrejón University Hospital, and to patients in the Home Hospitalization Unit of the Vinalopó University Hospital, in automatically and using natural language processing strategies to see how they are doing. "Behind all this intelligence there is a platform that manages and where the clinician assesses whether his intervention is necessary to guarantee safe and adequate care for the patient", account Mireia. This tool allows monitoring and providing coverage in their homes to all those patients who need constant follow-up.
“We have another very nice experience, a pioneer in hospitals in Spain. It consists of the installation of artificial intelligence boxes to recognize emergency notices and thus alert deaf people of these notices”, explains Mireia. A project developed by Visualfy and carried out at the Vinalopó University Hospital to maintain a safe and accessible environment for everyone. By recognizing emergency sounds, it sends visual alerts through installed lights and through an App on the mobile phones of patients with hearing functional diversity.
The good results obtained have turned these artificial intelligence projects into success stories that the healthcare group shares through its technology subsidiary futuRS.
