Other companies shortlisted this year include PwC, Sapient Razorfish and Zendesk, in various categories.Following the significant advances made in recent AI technologies and applications in 2017, the AIconics awards was at its most competitive, with over 300 entries across the 10 awards.
Following is a Question & Answer session with Michel Gillmann, Marketing Director for Xerafy, about how AI is coming to healthcare providers.
The Case for AI in Healthcare – The Healthcare Provider Perspective
Q: How does Xerafy’s technology relate to AI in healthcare?
Our solution offers hospitals the essential layer they need to digitize their operations, automatically collecting data throughout their workflows and processes, and delivering operational performances and transformations.
Many start-ups look at Digital Health from a patient / consumer perspective. Xerafy on the other hand focuses on the Hospital, the healthcare ‘factory’ that touches so many lives and where so little has happened in terms of digitization and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Hospitals are lagging behind most industries when it comes to digitization – they are still relying heavily on manual processes and data entry, making their inherently complex workflows and processes even more difficult to optimize.
Our sensors, hardware and software automate data capture, and pave the way for real-time localization, just-in-time logistics, electronic audit trail, Analytics and Big Data, AI Data Pool, to name a few. They provide the necessary layer of automated data needed to help reshape the hospital’s core operations and deliver tremendous operational improvements.
Q: What are the levels of complexity you typically have to address and do you deliver ease-of-use for the end-user?
Our solution strives to be invisible and seamless, hiding complexity and leveraging digital to simplify, automate, eventually leading to minimized risks.
Hospitals are full of manual processes, exceptions, emergencies, structured and unstructured data, individuals responsible for making decisions on the spot. They are very complex systems with highly regulated operations, but surprisingly not much in common between them in terms of operational standards. Their focus however is on risks to patient safety, be it infections or retained instruments for instance.
The average U.S. hospital has an inventory of surgical instruments worth $2 to $4 million, making it one of its most valuable mobile asset. For surgeons to be able to use the instruments they will need to be counted, checked, cleaned, sterilized, maintained, repaired, located, packed, delivered, and documented. The whole reprocessing workflow is complex and we are reminded everyday that even a single disruption can have catastrophic consequences on patient safety and experience.
With our Surgical Instruments Tracking (SIT) solution, Xerafy supports and simplifies the reprocessing workflow by providing instant checks, eliminating human error, automating the most tedious tasks, and giving visibility to all stakeholders. Moreover, the solution opens new opportunities by generating data that will empower process optimization, real-time localization, proactive maintenance, ownership documentation, sterilization records…to name a few mission-critical applications.
There are no other solutions that come close because they rely on technologies that present a number of operational shortcomings at the point-of-care. Our solutions and hardware and software fit seamlessly into an existing setup, being developed with the very people who are using them, the surgeon, scrubs, nurses, sterilization and cleaning technicians that are at the heart of the hospital.
Q: What are some unique implementation challenges when it comes to healthcare?
The solution gives unique identification to a hospital’s every instrument and device.
The solution gives them visibility – Throughout the hospital workflows (e.g. between Operation Rooms and Sterilization teams), as well as within their own lifecycle.
The solution automates data capture and entry, simplifying daily tasks for teams and eliminating human errors.
The solution fits seamlessly into hospital facilities, processes and systems, to minimize change management.
Q: What is the ROI for the healthcare provider?
Hospitals implementing the solution report immediate operational improvements, on average: 7 to 25 minutes saved per surgery performed, 30 minutes to 2 hours in Assembly and Inventory. With 75,000 surgeries performed a year, it is estimated that Rigshopitalet Copenhagen (Denmark) can save up to 31,000 hours.
The solution also directly supports and enables the implementation of Patient Safety strategies, with a measurable impact in terms of incidence of Retained Surgical Instruments and Secondary Infection events.
Eventually, the user can measure ROI when it comes to operational efficiencies, for instance through their P&L based on increased utilization of OR facilities and hospital assets.
Xerafy is a pioneer in Industrial RFID, bringing to market several innovations that enable advanced industrial identification and automation capabilities.
In addition to a complete range of field-proven RFID tags available off-the-shelf, Xerafy offers Custom RFID Tags services, covering everything from a personalization service bureau to custom-design engineering capabilities.
