PHIL GALEWITZ
KFF Health News
Patients admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital get a monitoring device about the size of a half-dollar affixed to their chest — and an unwitting role in the expanding use of artificial intelligence in health care.
The slender, battery-powered gadget, called a BioButton, records vital signs including heart and breathing rates, then wirelessly sends the readings to nurses sitting in a 24-hour control room elsewhere in the hospital or in their homes. The device’s software uses AI to analyze the voluminous data and detect signs a patient’s condition is deteriorating.
Hospital officials say the BioButton has improved care and reduced the workload of bedside nurses since its rollout last year.
“Because we catch things earlier, patients are doing better, as we don’t have to wait for the bedside team to notice if something is going wrong,” said Sarah Pletcher, system vice president at Houston Methodist.
People are also reading… UPDATED: West Middle assistant principal keeps job after Sioux City School Board vote Sioux City mother proud as twin sons embark on separate journeys after graduation Man linked to missing Nebraska girl faces federal charges in Sioux City Bob & Ellen’s restaurant opens in North Sioux City; Spirit Lake to get one, too Wage increases for Sioux City teachers, other staff approved Monday Rue21 latest Southern Hills Mall store to close Hinton denies coaches, administrators knew about wrestling abuses Marriage licenses for Woodbury County for May 13, 2024 Sioux City man found guilty of sexually assaulting 13-year-old girl 73rd annual Morningside Days celebration to begin with a parade on Thursday Now streaming and on DVD: ‘Frasier’ reboot improves as series wears on Heelan’s Olson picks Arizona football, leads bevy of college commitments by area athletes Man killed in Saturday afternoon motorcycle crash in Union County UPDATED: Sioux City man charged with sexual assault, kidnapping Orange City Tulip Festival title brings more than a crown
But some nurses fear the technology could wind up replacing them rather than supporting them — and harming patients. Houston Methodist, one of dozens of U.S. hospitals to employ the device, is the first to use the BioButton to monitor all patients except those in intensive care, Pletcher said.
“The hype around a lot of these devices is they provide care at scale for less labor costs,” said Michelle Mahon, a registered nurse and an assistant director of National Nurses United, the profession’s largest U.S. union. “This is a trend that we find disturbing,” she said.
The rollout of BioButton is among the latest examples of hospitals deploying technology to improve efficiency and address a decades-old nursing shortage. But that transition has raised its own concerns, including about the device’s use of AI; polls show the public is wary of health providers relying on it for patient care.
In December 2022, the FDA cleared the BioButton for use in adult patients who are not in critical care. It is one of many AI tools now used by hospitals for tasks like reading diagnostic imaging results.
In 2023, President Joe Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a plan to regulate AI in hospitals, including by collecting reports of patients harmed by its use.
The leader of BioIntelliSense, which developed the BioButton, said its device is a huge advance compared with nurses walking into a room every few hours to measure vital signs. “With AI, you now move from ‘I wonder why this patient crashed’ to ‘I can see this crash coming before it happens and intervene appropriately,'” said James Mault, CEO of the Golden, a Colorado-based company.
The BioButton stays on the skin with an adhesive, is waterproof, and has up to a 30-day battery life. The company says the device — which allows providers to quickly notice deteriorating health by recording more than 1,000 measurements a day per patient — has been used on more than 80,000 hospital patients nationwide in the past year.
Hospitals pay BioIntelli Sense an annual subscription fee for the devices and software.
Houston Methodist officials would not reveal how much the hospital pays for the technology, though Pletcher said it equates to less than a cup of coffee a day per patient.
For a hospital system that treats thousands of patients at a time — Houston Methodist has 2,653 non-ICU beds at its eight Houston-area hospitals — such an investment could still translate to millions of dollars a year.
Hospital officials say they have not made any changes in nurse staffing and have no plans to because of implementing the BioButton.
Inside the hospital’s control center for virtual monitoring on a recent morning, about 15 nurses and technicians dressed in scrubs sat in front of large monitors showing the health status of hundreds of patients they were assigned to monitor.
A red check mark next to a patient’s name signaled the AI software had found readings trending outside normal. Staff members could click into a patient’s medical record, showing patients’ vital signs over time and other medical history. These virtual nurses, if you will, could contact nurses on the floor by phone or email, or even dial directly into the patient’s room via video call.
Nutanben Gandhi, a technician who was watching 446 patients on her monitor that morning, said that when she gets an alert, she looks at the patient’s health record to see if the anomaly can be easily explained by something in the patient’s condition or if she needs to contact nurses on the patient’s floor.
The hospital has placed small cameras and microphones inside all patient rooms enabling nurses outside to communicate with patients and perform tasks such as helping with patient admissions and discharge instructions. Patients can include family members on the remote calls with nurses or a doctor, she said.
0 Comments Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0
Be the first to know
Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
