Health systems across the nation are witnessing their critical recourses become rapidly overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.
“If we continue to increase at the pace we have been, we won’t have enough ventilators, enough rooms,” Dr. David De La Zerda, director of critical care and pulmonologist at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, tells Time magazine.
With record spikes in national cases of the coronavirus leading to increased hospitalization rates in at least 16 states, organizations find themselves in need of short-term solutions that can alleviate the strain put on their hospital beds, ventilators and — most important — care teams.
Automation and artificial intelligence solutions are making an impact by streamlining workflows and helping reduce clinician burnout.
Additionally, these solutions are cutting the number of up-close interactions that could prompt coronavirus exposure by automating and coordinating unique care tasks brought about by the pandemic, Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, chief clinical officer at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett in Washington state, tells Forbes.
According to Sarah Swank, a healthcare lawyer for Nixon Peabody LLP, usage and capabilities are poised for rapid growth amid the public health crisis. “We are at the very beginning of AI really expanding and exploding,” she said last month at the American Telemedicine Association’s annual conference.
