An Artificial Intelligence Will Monitor Patients at Ichilov Clinic

In one of the largest Israeli clinics – the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv – testing of a new experimental patient monitoring system has begun. The technology, which uses cameras and special sensors to collect data and artificial intelligence to analyze it, is hoped to solve the problem of medical staff shortages and save many lives.

The new medical monitoring system is a joint project of Ichilov Hospital and two Israeli companies – AnyVision and BioBeat, specializing in machine learning technologies and health monitoring systems. According to Dr. Ahuma Weiss-Meilik, head of the clinic's quality and data processing department, there is a severe shortage of medical personnel in the country, making it impossible to ensure quality monitoring of all patients. The new monitoring system is expected to address this issue.

“Doctors and nurses cannot be with all patients at the same time,” says Dr. Weiss-Meilik. “Patients in therapeutic departments, if connected to a vital signs monitoring system, are not monitored around the clock. This means that there is no possibility to continuously monitor their condition, and the number of visits by medical staff during the day is limited. We needed a technology that would allow us to continuously receive data about the patient's condition and alert the hospital staff in case of deterioration.”

Such technology has been created using artificial intelligence. It is based on an algorithm capable of detecting an impending deterioration in the patient's condition. It relies on data collected by a camera directed at the patient's bed and special sensors attached to their body. This information is automatically sent via wireless channels to the hospital's central database and recorded in the patient's electronic medical record.

“The system provides round-the-clock monitoring. It recognizes any changes in indicators such as blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, and several others,” says a representative of Ichilov Clinic. “As soon as it detects any anomaly, it immediately alerts the medical staff.”

This monitoring system is unique, its developers note. It is currently undergoing medical trials, in which ten patients from the hospital have already participated: each of them has consented to electronic monitoring. It is expected that in the near future, hundreds of patients will join the testing of this technology, which has already attracted several tens of thousands of dollars in investments.

The experimental project is planned for at least two years. If the system shows satisfactory results at the end of this period, it will be implemented in standard clinical practice, addressing the pressing issue of medical staff shortages in Israeli hospitals.

The director of Ichilov Medical Center, Professor Roni Gamzu, highly praised the new technology, calling it an example of the medicine of the future. “Some patients in therapeutic departments are not connected to the monitoring system because their condition does not require it,” he says. “But sometimes they present us with unpleasant 'surprises' in the sense that their condition unexpectedly begins to deteriorate. Therefore, medical staff needs technologies that will help them identify complex situations and navigate through vast amounts of patient data.”

The professor also noted Israel's leading position in the development and implementation of medical technologies based on artificial intelligence. He expressed confidence that the use of intelligent systems in medicine will expand in the future.