How AI Improves Post Facility Healthcare

AI is Making it Easier to Track Patient's Conditions Outside of the Hospital

Healthcare doesn’t end when you leave the hospital. In response to this, healthcare AI is being deployed in conjunction with medical grade computers to ensure that post-hospital care is just as effective as care received within the facility. Below are only some of the most recently discovered use cases that delve deeper into answering how AI helps healthcare improve post-facility care.

How AI Helps Healthcare With Social Determinants of Health

We’ve discussed before just how much social determinants of health can hold sway over the kinds of afflictions and care a patient receives. Many of these determinants, such as income, access to resources, and more, are all facets that exist outside of the healthcare facility, making it difficult for providers to account for them when creating a treatment plan after discharge.

AI has been used to address this gap. Facilities like Jvion have created Community Vulnerability Maps that show which communities are most at risk of developing severe cases of COVID-19. Loading this data in conjunction with public census information into an AI program can allow physicians to be notified of any patients who are at any immediate risk. With all this data in tow, resource allocation and patient outreach efforts can be better optimized to help those who need care but don’t have access to it.

How AI Helps Healthcare Identify Drivers of Disease

Healthcare AI is able to create risk ratings for any given condition. These AI programs can automatically alert care providers so that efforts can be taken to get ahead of worsened conditions. The same, of course, can be done for treating COVID patients and identifying risk factors that could make someone experience a much more fatal reaction to the illness.

AdventHealth recently switched to an EHR program integrated with an AI platform that automatically scans records for factors that could make COVID deadlier for a particular patient. When a patient has been identified as increased risk due to these drivers of disease, provider staff can be notified so that more resources can be allocated to their treatment and more outreach can be performed.

How AI Helps Healthcare Address Mental Hurdles

Not all drivers of disease are physical. Mental health issues can make it very difficult for patients to adhere to treatment plans after discharge. In extreme cases, these conditions can cause patients to willingly ignore treatment or harm themselves. Providers are starting to take notice as the number of patients experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse soar due to quarantine and isolation.

AI used by behavioral health providers to automatically notify them of at-risk patients. These programs can even inform providers who don’t work with behavioral health what kinds of mental conditions can be predecessors to exacerbated conditions, treatment failures, and more.

You Can Prepare for AI With Note Standardization

To improve your odds of creating an effective AI program, optimize your note-taking practices and standardization. After all, an AI won’t do your facility any good if the data it’s reading isn’t scannable. So how can you facilitate standardizing your notes aside from simply educating your staff?

The main issue behind many instances of improperly formatted notes is burnout. Streamlining the login process with medial cart computers that include RFID scanners can make the note-taking process much less monotonous and aid in alleviating burnout. When integrated into portable medical grade tablets, RFID scanners can be used to scan patient bracelets and make logging and pulling up patient info just as easy.

Adopting a standardized way of logging notes such as SOAP notes format can also streamline note logging and provide a uniform note format that is much more easily scanned by AI and machine learning programs.

Adapt to Overcome Hurdles Old and New

While 2020 may have been a milestone shift in how we treat patients, it is by no means the first shift of its kind. Adapting care to meet the new demands hoisted upon us by COVID and the new demands we’ll be sure to shoulder in the future means constantly revisiting solutions such as AI, robotics, and more to see which innovations now have a place in the modern healthcare industry. And if you’re interested in learning how AI helps healthcare in the world of 2021 and beyond, you can learn more by contacting a professional from the Cybernet team.