The benefits of lightweight infrastructure
Historically, hospitals had to make a painful tradeoff between accuracy and affordability. Traditional solutions like ultrasound and infrared were more accurate, but their hardware required expensive installation projects that put patient rooms and hallways out of order. As a result, the hospital was simultaneously incurring costs from the technology and installation, and losing revenue from temporarily unusable rooms.

Due to the cost-prohibited nature of comprehensive installations, hospitals settled for selective deployments–choosing critical areas within the hospital like the ER or the ICU–while leaving other portions of the campus without coverage. Or, they opted for more budget-friendly options of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which were easier to deploy but provided poor accuracy and an inability to differentiate between floors effectively.
Thankfully, the lightweight infrastructure possible with AI-driven solutions overcomes the tradeoff of legacy alternatives. Hospitals can now achieve campus-wide coverage and room-level accuracy without the cost and disruption.

Evolution of AI in hospitals
It’s no secret that AI has become somewhat of an overused term. Nevertheless, the amalgamation of AI and location intelligence is revolutionizing hospital operations by significantly improving the management and utilization of mobile medical equipment.

Much of the discussion around AI in hospitals focuses on supervised and unsupervised models operating on large datasets, often from multiple sources. For example, AI might enable predictive analytics. Can you predict the rate of ER admissions based on the weather? Can you better estimate when equipment requires maintenance based on usage?

However, newer AI-driven applications can also focus on intentionally narrow datasets with a hyper-supervised learning model. In this case, as AI gets applied to the sensors themselves, it enables light hardware infrastructure to achieve high-quality performance, delivering a return on investment absent in many location intelligence solutions until now.

As hospitals continue to adopt these innovative solutions that function with AI at their core, they can expect marked improvements in both their operational efficiency and financial health, ultimately empowering them to deliver higher-quality care to their patients.

About the author: Jeff Stiffler is the director of product marketing - healthcare at Cognosos.

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