New unit at Nebraska Medicine integrates technology like AI into patient care

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – Nebraska Medicine’s brand new Innovation Design Unit is set up to research the future of healthcare.

The unit will let medical professionals test new concepts before using them for patient care.

The patient experience is a big part of the Innovation Design Unit, improved technology will get patients more involved in their care.

“…part of the screen will have everything a patient needs to know,” said Dr. Chad Vokoun, medical director for the unit. “A big question is: What’s today? What’s the schedule? Who’s coming?”

There’s also room for doctors and nurses to meet and discuss patient care and how they can make it better.

Nebraska Medicine has partnered with an aritificial intelligence company so staff doesn’t have to spend so much time charting and doing other paperwork.

“The care unit of the future should be all about human interactions, and more of the technology should be invisible,” Dr. Vokoun said.

Bringing nurses into the room through virtual technology is also a help for staff, especially with nursing shortage across the country.

“There is definitely staffing shortages not limited to only nursing; and so one of the things we’re looking at is, how can we re-look at staffing ratios and better adjust to whats the right number of nurses for a patient need,” said Dr. Michael Ash, president and COO of Nebraska Medicine. “… We don’t know what that ratio looks like today, and we don’t know if it will be a set number going into the future.”

The Innovation Design Unit will also help educate more medical professionals through virtual technology, allowing students to learn outside the patient’s care space.

“For a student, you see a point and time the sickest part of a condition; and so by using this adjacent space will also allow the teacher to pull in more information about the condition. So we feel it will not only be a better experience for the patient themselves but a much better environment for the learners,” Dr. Ash said.

The Innovation Design Unit is next to the patients’ rooms and changes cand be made depending on what doctors and nurses learn from the patients, taking our healthcare to a higher level.

“Physicians have a tricky job of navigating healthcare these days, but we can make it more centered on the team, and I think the Innovaton Design Unit is going to help figure out the best way to do that,” Dr. Vokoun said. “We’re going to set the standard for what healthcare needs to look like for the next 10, 20, hopefully even 30 years.”

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