AI-powered robots take the stage at HIMSS

The Samsung Medical Center, in Seoul, South Korea, is arguably the most advanced digital hospital in the world – it has earned four of the HIMSS Stage 7 designations, a unique honour. But the organization didn’t get there without blood, sweat, toil and tears. And a few mistakes.

“It wasn’t a success from the start,” asserted Dr. Seung-woo Park, president and CEO, speaking at the annual HIMSS conference in March. “At first, it was a total failure. We bit off more than we could chew.”

Dr. Park, a keynote presenter, offered some distilled wisdom to attendees at a packed kick-off session at the Venetian Hotel conference centre. He and the hospital’s interim CMIO, Dr. Meong Hi Son also demonstrated a pair of pediatric robots created by the centre named Rumi and Nova.

Powered by AI, but remote-controlled at the session, the robots are designed to interact with children who may otherwise have difficulty relating to adults or other kids. As Dr. Son observed, the robots communicate with children, educate them, and help with their recoveries.

In describing the SMH’s march to digital and EMRAM success, Dr. Park said the key learning from the original EMR flop was to avoid the big bang approach and instead take small steps.

“We wanted a perfect system right away,” he said. But however hard the IT team tried to get it working, they just couldn’t make it happen.

So, the hospital changed to a more agile approach, said Dr. Park, creating and testing smaller components, then scaling up.

That approach worked better. From this new start, in 1996, the hospital racked up success after success.

Importantly, Dr. Park accentuated that the hospital’s IT journey wasn’t simply for the sake of technology itself. Rather, the organization was experiencing an incredible surge in patient demand for services.

Patient visits rocketed from 100,000 in 1994 to 2.3 million in 2022. “Transformation was required,” he said.

Digital processes were adopted to help accommodate the increasing flow of patients. He said SMC became the first filmless hospital in Asia in 1996 and went paperless in 2008.

As part of its digital transition, it was able to process 4,500 lab samples daily with a turnaround time of one hour.

By the late 2000s, however, the system had already reached its capacity and the hospital launched its next generation EMR. People had to learn new ways of working, including closer collaboration. “People had to change,” said Dr. Park. “It took years.”

The new system was rules-based, and the hospital also implemented a standardized terminology. This new system is known as DARWIN, short for Data Analytics & Research Window for Integrated Knowledge.

The experiences with SARS, MERS and COVID-19 also spurred the hospital to develop more contactless processes.

And a drive to reduce the documentation workload on nurses has resulted in greater job satisfaction and lower turnover. One example of how the burden was reduced was the introduction of point-of-care scanning technologies.

As a result of empowering the nurses and cutting the paper burden, nurse turnover was reduced by 40 percent from 2019 to 2023.

The hospital also deployed a closed loop medication system. However, it wasn’t so easy to implement, taking seven years to perfect.

Most recently, SMC created a ‘digital twin’, a virtual copy of the hospital that allows it to test various applications and processes. Using the digital twin, it can see how a change in one part of the hospital may affect not only that area but others, as well.

For her part, Dr. Son said that success in deploying digital system requires respect for medical professionals in the organization. “You must let professionals feel respected, and that they will leave a legacy.

Moreover, balancing the need to deploy new solutions with staff readiness or willingness to accept change can be difficult. “Choosing what not to do is as important as choosing what to do,” she continued.

She said there is sometimes a conflict in values between what different clinicians may want to deploy. When there is a conflict of this sort, it’s often best not to proceed.

To minimize hard feelings, she said it’s often necessary to tell clinicians their ideas are good, but they won’t be able to be used immediately.

Dr. Park said HIMSS was valuable to the organization in identifying gaps in the hospital’s digital strategy. These included analytics and a more comprehensive governance structure. The hospital was also encouraged to monitor outcomes.

Towards the end of the presentation, Dr. Son brought out the pediatric robots, Rumi and Nova. She explained that she herself is a pediatrician and found that she and her colleagues weren’t always able to provide the support needed by some of the children.

So, they decided to create AI-powered robots that could interact with some of the children. “Kids feel better, recover better,” she said. “They even start taking care of the robots.”
The robots can be remote-controlled, and they talk to the kids. According to Dr. Son, they also have AI capabilities and can respond on their own, as well.

Asked what she foresees in the technological future, Dr. Son said she predicts that “agents” will come to the fore and play a more prominent role. “They will redefine what is possible,” she said.

She added that what she is most proud of in South Korea is its universal healthcare system. “No matter where healthcare goes, we shouldn’t lose this value,” she stated.

And the human element should always be first and foremost, with technology as a helper. “Technology should be a light to guide us – like a flashlight.”