What will SMC look like after finishing ambitious ‘digital innovation’ project?

The increasingly and rapidly sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT) is changing the appearance of hospitals.

Thanks to ICT-based cutting-edge technologies prioritizing a patient-centered service mindset, visitors experience “digital innovation” from the moment they enter hospitals until they leave after receiving treatment.

Upon arrival, patients are informed about treatment schedules and processes during the day on their mobile phones, fill up questionnaire forms and send them to the hospital’s information system. Mobile inpatient service has also sharply reduced hospitalization procedures.

This is also the appearance of Samsung Medical Center, which declared to become the “state-of-the-art intelligent hospital” in 2021.

Since the declaration, SMC has shown remarkable progress.

In the Newsweek list of “world’s top smart hospitals” last year, SMC ranked 31st worldwide and the top in Korea.

In addition, the hospital received the highest grade in the U.S. Healthcare Information and Management System Society’s IT infrastructure certification (HIMSS INFRAM) for the first time worldwide, winning international recognition for establishing the infrastructure as the core of the state-of-the-art intelligent hospital.

HIMSS is a global advisor, thought leader, and member-based society committed to reforming the global health ecosystem through the power of information and technology, according to its mission statement.

SMC’s ongoing leap to the futuristic hospital is the Digital Innovation Promotion Group. The group comprises three teams responsible for information and strategy, medical information, and data service. Professor Lee Poong-ryeol of the Department of Gastroenterology is leading the group.

“Under the slogan of ‘state-of-the-art intelligent hospital,’ we have set seven innovation targets – treatment, logistics, patient service, operational resources, space, talent, and care – and carried out more than 20 innovation programs,” Professor Lee said in an interview on Wednesday. “We have accomplished many things since last year.”

For instance, patients could save unnecessary waiting time by completing a questionnaire on their mobile before they come to the hospital. According to Lee, nurses could also reduce efforts to computerize handwritten treatment information and use the time for patients to deal with patients, drastically improving nursing service.

“Notably, the ‘Smart Logistics Robot Pilot Project,’ in which robots carry treatment data and materials, and AI-based prediction solution for bedsore levels can be called digital solution, which ‘catches two birds with one stone by reducing medical professionals’ workload and improving patient experience,’” Professor Lee said.

In the AI-based bedsore level prediction solution, patients and their families take a picture of bedsore with their smartphone and send it to hospitals, the artificial intelligence analyzes it, predicts bedsore level, and recommends dressings suiting it. As a result, hospitals can predict bedsore levels and reduce the occurrence of bedsores through timely treatment. It can also greatly help new nurses in their jobs.

According to SMC, it is the first Korean hospital that introduces a smart logistics robot. By developing an automation system in which robots deliver treatment materials without the help of humans, nurses and other medical workers could become free from such jobs and secure more time to focus on patients.

Also, robots can deliver the materials at night when there are no visitors, helping to ease congestion at the hospital. SMC plans to expand the smart logistics robot project to the entire hospital by the end of next year.

“We calculated the standard amount of treatments used by each hospital ward daily, weekly and monthly by analyzing big data, put three times the amount in a smart cart cabinet, and deliver them to each ward using robots,” Lee said. “Previously, nurses had to check delivered materials and store them in inventories. However, the stockpiles are also being managed automatically now.”

Choi Jong-soo, head of the group’s information strategy team, said, “In the past, nurses often left work late because they had to spend lots of time checking the materials’ volume when changing shifts. Now that the hospital has automated jobs not directly related to nursing, it could reduce their workload considerably.”

Professor Lee stressed the need for long-term investment to continue to push for digital promotion, expressing his will to carry out innovation that can touch the hearts of patients and insiders.

“It takes huge costs when investing in infrastructure. However, that’s inevitable because we must build new infrastructure while maintaining the hospital system without stoppage,” Lee said. “In the long term, however, investing now will work well in terms of cost-effectiveness.”

He emphasized that it is important to impress patients and staff, even a small part of the changed system.

“Less than one and a half years have passed since our group started work, and we are still at a toddler’s stage,” Professor Lee said. “As we strive hard to build a state-of-the-art intelligent hospital, I look forward to such emotion spread broadly.”