Transforming healthcare: How smart-ICUs are empowering community hospitals to provide world-class care

In 2024, India stands on the cusp of becoming a global economic powerhouse. However, the health of its population will be a key determinant of its success. Investing in technology-driven healthcare is not just about improving health outcomes; it’s about building a resilient, equitable, and sustainable healthcare system for the future. While there are multiple digital health initiatives in the primary care space, for secondary and tertiary care, Smart-ICUs are where the answer lies. 

A Smart-ICU is an ICU unit that has digitised its documentation. It uses AI (including video monitoring AI – more on that later), for early detection of patient deterioration, and the ICU delivers technology-driven protocols for managing specific diseases. Most importantly, it is connected 24/7 to a virtual team (a centralised Care Center, staffed by critical care doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals). The virtual team can augment the bedside team during any clinical event ensuring that patients admitted receive world-class care. Additionally, this is a unit that is now data-driven, conducts training for its staff based on data, has access to multidisciplinary virtual teams, and retrospectively reviews data and institutes quality improvements. After all, you cannot improve what you don’t measure!    

80 per cent of hospital care in India occurs in community hospitals. These are hospitals typically started by doctors addressing the needs of their patient base and community. A good ICU is the backbone of a hospital allowing the hospital to admit more complex cases, and surgeons to perform complex surgeries. By adopting the Smart-ICU approach, community hospitals can enhance tertiary care through seamless collaboration with top specialists, real-time remote monitoring, and access to cutting-edge treatments. This integration improves patient outcomes, reduces the need for long-distance travel, and ensures cost-effective high-quality care is available locally, strengthening the hospital’s services. This empowers healthcare providers in community hospitals to make swift, informed decisions, significantly improving patient outcomes. Bedside teams, including doctors who can’t always be present in the ICU, can access this information remotely, allowing them to stay informed about their patients’ conditions at all times. This technology enhances patient safety, the hospital’s reputation and gives doctors peace of mind, knowing their patients are constantly monitored and well cared for.

Adoption of technology: A must for community hospitals

Community hospitals often invest heavily in infrastructure and building space, yet struggle to optimise these resources due to a lack of specialised expertise and long-term reliable nurses and junior doctors. Many of these hospitals are run by dedicated doctors who are stretched thin, balancing surgeries and packed OPD schedules. By adopting advanced technology, these hospitals can overcome the expertise gap and the transient nature of their workforce. This helps them make better use of their existing investments allowing overburdened doctors to be aided by AI, helping them to collaborate with virtual specialists 24/7. This not only elevates patient care but also maximises the hospital’s potential, turning challenges into opportunities. Technology is going to be a powerful tool in the healthcare space, bridging the gap between community hospitals and major medical centres. By leveraging telemedicine, AI-driven diagnostics, and remote monitoring, community hospitals can offer advanced care that was once only available in a few nationally renowned centres. 

Smart-ICUs: A business proposition for community hospitals

Implementing Smart-ICUs in community hospitals presents an exciting opportunity to revolutionise critical care delivery. While challenges such as financial constraints, logistical issues, and the need to train healthcare staff exist, these hurdles can be addressed through strategic planning, investments, and comprehensive training programs.

Smart ICUs can significantly boost the business performance of community hospitals by attracting more patients who seek advanced care locally, leading to increased occupancy rates. As occupancy rises, the hospital’s lab, pharmacy, and other facilities are utilised more effectively, generating additional revenue streams. This not only improves the hospital’s financial health but also enhances its reputation as a provider of high-quality, comprehensive care, making it a more attractive choice for patients and healthcare professionals alike.

Multiple community hospitals have successfully managed to integrate Smart-ICUs including the likes of Aveksha Hospital based out of Bengaluru. Aveksha Hospital recently inaugurated its Cath lab, Burn Unit and expanded into multiple superspecialist services as a result of having a Smart-ICU for over 5 years. While initially the occupancy was at the lower end they have now expanded their ICUs and occupancy has increased 5X. Since starting Smart-ICU services, this has enabled Aveksha to open multiple facilities and through all of these initiatives, the hospital has seen a 400 per cent business growth. 

By addressing the critical needs of community hospitals, Smart-ICUs ensure that high-quality critical care is accessible, scalable, and cost-effective. As more hospitals adopt Smart-ICU solutions, the overall quality of critical care in India will improve, setting new benchmarks for patient care and operational excellence.

AI: The game changer that will enable equitable care for all!

Unfortunately for too long, high-quality tertiary care has been limited to a few centres globally and is very expensive for most to access. That paradigm is now changing rapidly with the advent of AI in healthcare. With the ethical use of AI, i.e., ensuring patient consent, privacy and ensuring data is utilised within regulatory norms – high-quality care is now getting to be in the reach of patients everywhere in a cost-effective manner. With Smart-ICUs being implemented in hospitals everywhere, AI is now being used to pick up patient deterioration before it occurs, and virtual ICU nurses and doctors using AI are now able to collaborate with teams anywhere ensuring that patients get access to the best expertise. Doctors who are not next to their patients 24/7 can get updates on their mobiles and be involved and oversee the care of their patients from anywhere. The state of the art in AI is video monitoring AI – where real-time video automatically detects patient movements, seizures, increased effort of breathing, and risk of infections in case proper precautionary techniques are not followed and alerts the doctors and nurses.

Similarly, it detects if the patient hasn’t moved and is at risk of developing a pressure ulcer, or is moving too much and is at risk of falling or pulling out a tube. It can see the urine bag and detect if the urine output is low and send an alert and similarly look at a waveform on a ventilator and detect an abnormality. This is the cutting-edge AI in Smart-ICUs that is ensuring that patients get world-class care. Doctors and nurses have the support they need and they can focus on the things that AI can’t help with – the interpersonal aspect of healthcare delivery. Spending more time talking to patients and families, counselling them, empathising and understanding their value systems, and supporting them through a very difficult period in their lives and their family’s lives is something on-ground doctors and nurses can focus on. They can spend more time training junior doctors and nurses, collaborating with their colleagues, and using data that is now available to make decisions for their patients, their hospitals, and their profession. This data can now be used for research to develop new and better treatments and protocols. This is the future of healthcare in hospitals with Smart-ICUs and this is the future where everyone gets world-class care – the care we all deserve!