Medical Moment: AI in the ICU
(WNDU) - ICU’s across the country have been packed to capacity in the past year. They’re full from patients suffering from severe COVID-19 symptoms, to others fighting for their lives due to accidents, cancer, and a myriad of other health problems.
Add all of this to a nursing shortage, a problem that already existed before the pandemic, and we have a major healthcare problem in the United States.
Artificial intelligence may help to relieve the workload and save more lives.
“Artificial intelligence and other technologies can be used with our advantage,” Azra Bihorac, MD of Surgery & Anesthesiology at UF College of Medicine said.
A group of University of Florida health researchers are using artificial intelligence, capturing information from sensors, meters, and cameras, to constantly monitor the most critical of patients.
“We utilize pervasive sensing sensors that can be placed on patients in their environment and continuously monitor whatever they are doing,” Azra continued.
In addition to the vital signs, in the ICU of the future, a patient’s pain level will be captured through visual cues such as body movement, muscle twitching and facial expressions. Sensors record head and limb movements, posture, and mobility.
“It will help the physicians and nurses to be able to monitor the patients, to be able to also predict the trajectory of the patients in the ICU,” Dr. Parisa Rashidi, Biomedical Engineer at the University of Florida, said.
Computer algorithms analyze the data flowing from the patient and their room.
“Those are the algorithms that help you predict who is going to get sicker in the next three, four, five hours,” Azra stated.
Giving a continuous look into exactly how a patient is doing even when a nurse or doctor isn’t in the room.
“They are like multiple humans observing the patients at the same time and then bringing that information in summarized form to the doctors.”
This would provide doctors with a powerful tool to hopefully save more lives. Up to 50% of ICU patients experience delirium. Now researches are using AI techniques to look at everything from light levels, noise, and perhaps even odor.
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