Sahyadri Hospitals, a private healthcare provider in India, has recently powered its non-ICU wards with AI.
Founded in 1996, the group claims to be the biggest hospital chain in Maharashtra in India’s west, operating 13 hospitals with over a thousand beds.
THE PROBLEM
For many years, it relied on traditional patient monitoring systems and regular manual checks by skilled nursing and clinician teams.
“However, this approach had its limitations, including dependency on periodic checks and the potential for delays in identifying early signs of deterioration, particularly in non-ICU settings,” confessed Dr Kapil Borawake, director of Critical Care at Sahyadri Hospitals.
In an interview with Healthcare IT News, Dr Borawake noted these key challenges in patient safety: early detection of patient deterioration, improving response times, and reducing clinician workload.
SOLUTION
“The lack of continuous monitoring in non-ICU wards meant a reactive rather than a proactive approach to patient safety,” Dr Borawake said.
Recognising this gap, Sahyadri thought of establishing an AI-powered centre, in collaboration with medical device company Dozee.
“The AI-powered command centre was launched to overcome these gaps, enabling continuous, real-time monitoring, and providing early warning alerts to healthcare teams. This initiative aims to shift from a reactive care model to a predictive and preventive one, significantly enhancing patient safety and clinical outcomes.”
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
A proof of concept with Dozee demonstrated positive results, said Dr Borawake.
“The AI-powered early warning system showed a remarkable ability to predict patient deterioration up to 16 hours in advance, giving clinicians critical time to intervene. This led to a significant reduction in adverse events and optimized clinician workloads by streamlining monitoring processes.”
Dr Kapil Borawake, Director of Critical Care, Sahyadri Hospitals
“Additionally, operational efficiency improved, resulting in cost savings while maintaining high standards of patient care.”
RESULTS
For now, non-ICU wards at Sahyadri’s Hadapsar and Deccan branches are fully equipped with AI. It includes AI-based ballistocardiography for contactless monitoring of vital parameters such as heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, SPO2 levels, temperature, and ECG and an EWS tracking vital trends and providing alerts of early clinical deterioration.
On the clinical side, Sahyadri aims for the following goals: reducing mortality rates, ensuring timely interventions, and improving patient recovery outcomes.
“We also aim to reduce the number of code blue incidents in non-ICU settings,” Dr Borawake added.
On the operation side, the hospital looks to enhance resource utilisation, reduce clinician workload, and foster seamless communication between care teams.
Sahyadri is expected to expand the AI-powered command centre across all 13 of its branches “in the coming months.”
“Patient safety is at the core of our operations. With this initiative, we are shifting from a reactive model to a predictive and preventive one… In today’s evolving healthcare landscape, integrating AI into clinical practice is becoming essential to meet the high standards of care that patients now expect,” Dr Borawake emphasised.
Source : Healthcare IT News