Automation in Healthcare: How Can It Help Patients?

Our patient is Gary, a 43-year-old man. He arrived at the emergency room with swollen glands in his neck. Gary had a tooth extracted four days earlier and noticed a small swelling a few hours after the surgery. The swelling slowly spread and was now pressing on his throat.

With Gary’s help, we will experience healthcare automation from the perspective of four groups:

• Patients

• Physicians

• Administrative support staff

• Organizations

Shortly after Gary arrived at the emergency room, the assistant ordered a head and neck CT scan. When the EHR received the results, it immediately forwarded them via a secure text message to the treatment team.

The CT scan showed an abscess. The assistant used her mobile phone to access the hospital’s Clinical Collaboration & Communication (CC&C) system, sending a consultation request to the Oral Surgery department. Two minutes later, the on-call oral surgeon reviewed the CT scan and recommended an incision to drain the abscess.

As soon as an operating room became available, transport took Gary to surgery. Just as Gary arrived in the OR, he said his throat was closing and that he wouldn’t be able to breathe much longer. Seconds later, upon reaching the operating table, a surgeon intubated Gary, made an incision, and inserted a Penrose drain to remove the abscess.

After a short stay in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), Gary was admitted for 24 hours to receive antibiotics and monitoring.

Twenty minutes after Gary’s hospitalization, he felt his body heating up rapidly, resulting in a fever of 102°F. Knowing this was a dangerous situation, he spoke to the Amazon Alexa unit next to his bed, expressing urgent concerns about his rapidly rising body temperature.

Thirty seconds later, a nurse arrived to assess Gary’s condition, and within a minute, began cooling his body with an electric fan and damp towels.

Later that afternoon, during a routine vital signs check, a nursing assistant noticed a suspicious mole on Gary’s arm. The assistant reported it to the nurse, who ordered a dermatology consultation. The dermatologist sent an image of the mole to their Mole database, which correctly identified an early-stage basal cell carcinoma. The dermatologist prescribed an anti-tumor cream and told Gary he would not need further treatment.

After a shift change, Gary’s new nurse reviewed his ECG results from several hours earlier and noticed an abnormality. After consulting with Cardiology and discussing it with Gary’s PCP, the three doctors agreed that Gary should wear a small mobile heart monitor for two weeks. They assured Gary he wouldn’t have to cancel his upcoming out-of-state trip. By leveraging information technologies such as remote patient monitoring (RPM) and secure cloud-based infrastructure, the device could report cardiac irregularities as long as Gary was within cellular signal range.

When Gary’s physician issued a discharge order, secure messages alerted every member of the discharge team and set their worklists. Forty minutes later, the CC&C system detected the completion of all discharge team tasks and automatically sent a message to Transport and Environmental Services. Less than two hours later, Gary was on his way home, and the CC&C system sent a discharge summary to his PCP.