5 Lessons for Succeeding with Smart Hospital Rooms
Written by: Andy Figallo, VP, Partner Success, Vibe Health by eVideon
U.S. healthcare delivery is undergoing significant change. Hospitals nationwide are in the midst of ambitious digital transformation initiatives to tackle challenges like staff shortages, an aging population, and evolving consumer expectations. As health systems renovate or build facilities, there’s an opportunity to create a connected and user-friendly experience for staff and patients. But the path from vision to reality requires thoughtful planning, strategic partnerships, and a commitment to user-centered design.
The journey toward becoming a “hospital of the future” involves more than implementing new technology. It demands a fundamental consideration of how care should be delivered, how spaces are designed, and how patients, families, and staff interact. Success depends on integrating advanced digital capabilities while maintaining the human touch that defines quality healthcare.
With dozens of smart room implementations across the country under our belt, we’ve learned a lot by working hand-in-hand with our clients and technology partners. Here are our top 5 recommendations for any hospital or health system planning a transition to smart room technology.
1. User-Centered Design and Implementation
Successful digital transformation projects begin with technology infrastructure. The key to making it work in real-world environments is to understand and consider the user experience for patients, their families, and the staff caring for them.
Design with three core goals in mind:
- Reduce friction
- Eliminate redundant work
- Restore humanity to healthcare
For example, patients want more control and convenience in their hospital room. Duane Perry, RN, CNO and VP of Patient Care Services at OhioHealth explains in a recent article with Healthcare IT News, “Our patients are starting to expect and demand in healthcare some of the same conveniences they have in other industries – restaurants, hotels…” User-centered design considers capabilities such as autonomy to order meals, virtually connect with loved ones, or adjust the temperature and lights without having to call for help.
For nursing staff who spend much of their time on administrative tasks, the design and implementation of smart room technology should consider optimized workflow and safety precautions. Imagine no longer spending time trying to find signage, trying to decipher handwritten notes, or seeing real-time safety protocols before walking into a patient room. These challenges are solvable with thoughtful design and implementation of smart room tech.
2. Future-Proof Infrastructure
When designing your hospital's infrastructure and construction, whether for new buildings or renovations, think beyond today's needs. What will you want to implement five or even ten years from now? How will your infrastructure need to scale?
Simple decisions during design planning can save millions down the road. For example, Valley Health System installed patch paneling in each patient room to allow for flexibility and repurposing as new technologies emerge. Eric Carey, Valley Health’s VP and CIO explained to Healthcare Innovation: the team planned ahead to avoid expensive infrastructure overhauls, using patch panels as one method for scalability and lower maintenance costs.
This approach pays off well beyond the initial investment. Want to add virtual nursing capabilities down the road? With proper planning, you won't need massive infrastructure investments to make it happen. The team at OhioHealth embraced this concept by planning for virtual nursing to support all provider locations spread across a wide geography. By integrating Vibe Health Engage TV with Caregility’s Virtual Nursing solution, OhioHealth uses smart room technology to connect nursing specialists with patients. Virtual nurses can answer questions, help with discharge, or perform assessments, all without driving across the county.
3. Purposeful Vendor Selection
Building a hospital of the future depends heavily on integrated technology. With massive volumes of data flowing through multiple systems, you’ll need to design a framework that enables those systems to work together seamlessly.
Document your requirements and evaluate your options to find the right technology partners. Look for vendors who are flexible, creative, and willing to build custom interfaces that create a personalized, frictionless experience for end users.
In another example from OhioHealth, Duane Perry goes on to explain how they worked with their vendor partners to integrate translation services directly into their smart room design, “We no longer have to run down the hall and find a mobile cart… Physicians can pull up translation services in real time on the TV.”
Early in the design process, the team at Valley Health hosted a vendor summit, gathering representatives from a variety of technologies. An effective way to set clear expectations around interoperability and data integration, the summit was also an opportunity to reimagine clinical and operational workflows from the ground up, taking full advantage of what smart patient rooms can offer.
4. Stakeholder Testing and Feedback
Bring together diverse groups, including nurses, physicians, Patient & Family Advisory Council (PFAC) members, administrators, IT teams, critical care teams, and family care teams. Run multi-disciplinary workshops and design sessions where these stakeholders can provide real feedback on everything from hardware selection to software interfaces, building layouts, and workflow design.
Create a mockup space so users can experience what the smart room will look and feel like in real life. Build physical representations of your proposed patient rooms, nursing stations, operating rooms, and labor and delivery rooms – building mockups for different areas allows you to test for different types of workflows. Encourage stakeholders to walk through them, test the workflows, and identify pain points. Gathering feedback from real interaction will help identify and resolve things like awkward angles, unnecessary steps, and workflow bottlenecks before construction begins.
Andrea Darby, OhioHealth VP of IT Strategy and Architecture explained to Healthcare IT News, “Design prototypes for the smart rooms started two-and-a-half years before our first hospital with smart rooms opened.” Darby also noted that feedback sessions with staff and patients continue today as technology and capabilities evolve.
Nebraska Medicine created an Innovation Design Unit (IDU), designed for testing of new care delivery, such as smart room technology, before implementing in live environments. Scott Raymond, RN, Chief Innovation and Information Officer, explained in an interview with HealthSystemCIO, “Rather than conducting pilots within operational units and disrupting workflows, we built a dedicated space where we can iterate quickly.”
5. Real-Time Learnings for Continuous Improvement
Once your new or renovated hospital opens, the real learning begins. Patients and care teams experience your “hospital of the future” in real time. Build in mechanisms for immediate feedback so you can address issues and plan for future enhancements.
Here are a few learning examples we’ve heard from our clients who implemented smart room technology:
- Meal ordering reduces waste. Meal service alerts can completely reshape food workflows. Hospitals can move to made-to-order meals, dramatically reducing waste from precooked food. The result is better timing, accuracy, and quality of food service, which positively impacts each patient's healing journey.
- Families feel welcome. Dedicated spaces for caregivers to work remotely make a huge difference for families. Smart patient rooms also provide comfortable areas where families can spend time with loved ones while staying out of the clinical team’s way during care delivery.
- Metrics might challenge your assumptions. You might see changes in patient safety metrics that don't match your expectations, despite implementing advanced technology. These insights highlight opportunities for physical design improvements and additional staff training on new supportive technology.
From the first brainstorming session to opening day and beyond, everything starts with a shared vision. Success isn’t guaranteed because you have the latest technology. Understand your users’ needs. Purposefully plan for future growth. Build strategic partnerships with vendors, with staff at every level, patients, families, and community members. Establish clear feedback loops and act on what you learn.
With these methods in place, your hospital will be ready for what’s next. And the return on investment will speak for itself.
Says Eric Carey with Valley Health in an interview with Becker’sHealth IT: “Everything about [smart room] investment is paying off." Future-proofed infrastructure saves $800,000 for every wire that would need to be relocated when new tech is installed. The hospital has seen higher patient volumes and patient satisfaction scores. And, Valley saw a 10-30% decline in falls during the pilot phase of their smart room. “You can’t say no to that technology.”
For more information on our Vibe Health smart room platform, contact us at hello@evideon.com.
