At Ichilov Hospital, Artificial Intelligence Will Monitor Patient Conditions

At one of the largest clinics in Israel – the Tel Aviv Ichilov Hospital – testing has begun on a new experimental patient monitoring system. The technology, which uses cameras and special sensors to collect data and artificial intelligence for analysis, is hoped to address the shortage of medical personnel 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 Vaiz-Meilik, head of the quality and data processing department at the clinic, 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 solve this problem.

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

Such technology has been created using artificial intelligence. It is based on an algorithm capable of detecting impending deterioration in a 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 entered into the patient's electronic medical record.

“The system conducts 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 Hospital. “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 consented to electronic monitoring. It is expected that hundreds of patients will soon join the testing of this technology, which has already attracted several tens of thousands of dollars in investments.

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

The CEO 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 personnel need technologies that will help them identify complex situations and navigate the vast amounts of data about patients.”

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