Guest article: How virtual medical assistants are revolutionising Hospital at Home units
Home hospitalisation is a concept that has undergone a revolution in recent years, driven by many factors such as the increase in chronic patients, the rise of telemedicine during the pandemic, and above all, the arrival of new tools related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) that have allowed us to take great strides in a short amount of time.
An example of this type of tool is LOLA, the virtual clinical assistant created by Tucuvi, which is already present in large healthcare systems in Spain, Portugal, and the UK. With more than one million conversations with patients, it has managed to free up to 70 per cent of the time of nursing teams dedicated to patient follow-up. Katherine Wilisch, Marketing and Communications Manager at Tucuvi, a health tech company specialised in the development of Conversational Artificial Intelligence solutions, discusses how this type of technology can help to make healthcare more accessible and efficient.
The future of healthcare involves not only having the best technologies at the disposal of hospitals, but also focusing the use of these technologies so we can receive the same care in our own homes as we would in a hospital.
Home hospitalisation is a concept that has undergone a revolution in recent years, driven by many factors such as the increase in chronic patients, the rise of telemedicine during the pandemic, and above all, the arrival of new tools related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) that have allowed us to take great strides in a short amount of time.
Such is the case of AI-based voice virtual medical assistants, which allow for the automation of phone calls and patient follow-up. Specifically, these tools are designed to scale the monitoring and prioritization capacity of nurses and case managers. This way, it is possible to call patients autonomously and inform the care team about their vital signs, symptoms, and needs.
An example of this type of tool is LOLA, the virtual clinical assistant created by the company Tucuvi, and which is already present in large healthcare systems in Spain, Portugal, and the UK. With more than one million conversations with patients, it has managed to free up to 70 per cent of the time of nursing teams dedicated to patient follow-up.
This tool will be one of the protagonists during the third edition of the World Hospital at Home Congress, which took place from 30 March to 1 April 2023, in Barcelona.
It is an initiative of GEMS (Global Education of Medicine and Science). This organization supports and collaborates with global experts to deliver the right content at the right time by providing the necessary resources and formats to offer high-quality learning experiences. During this meeting, Tucuvi experts will participate in several congress activities.
To start, Dr. Jorge Riquelme, Business Development Manager of Tucuvi, will give the presentation ‘Efficient scaling of patient management in Hospital at Home Units (HaH) with LOLA, the voice-based virtual clinical assistant based on conversational AI.’
Also, nurse Ignacio Vanaclocha, a user of Tucuvi in his HaH Unit at the University and Polytechnic La Fe Hospital in Valencia, will present the poster ‘Chronic patients automated telephone follow-up through a virtual artificial intelligence voice assistant: A pilot case.’ In addition, Dr. Maikel Ayo González will participate in the session ‘Technology for HaH’ with the talk ‘Virtual assistant LOLA. Voice and artificial intelligence to monitor palliative patients at home.’
“We believe that it is not enough to have hospitals with the latest technology, but that it’s also necessary to take that technology to the patient’s home so that they can receive the same attention as they do in a hospital but from the comfort of their home. The miniaturization of technology and advances in Artificial Intelligence have a crucial role in the future of healthcare in the domestic environment,” says Manuel Mirón, Co-Chair of WHAH congress.
And he adds: “LOLA, for example, is a tool that allows patients to be under control without the need for direct interaction with them, that is, the control and follow-up process is automated, improving care. The main value is that it allows more planned care and the identification of states that need to be prioritised.”
New solutions for HAH units
Home hospitalization not only benefits patients, allowing them to be surrounded by their loved ones, but it also positively impacts the healthcare system as a whole. By reducing the number of hospital admissions and the length of stay, home hospitalization programs help alleviate the burden on hospitals and reduce the costs of healthcare systems in general.
Evidence confirms that the implementation of measures such as early hospital discharge, monitoring at home, or the expansion of techniques for ambulatory surgery are increasing the capacity of HaH units. However, to improve the implementation of these measures, we need tools that enable us to scale patient information collection and prioritize care , while reducing the daily workload of healthcare professionals in manual patient monitoring.
In this sense, the virtual clinical assistant LOLA, with more than 60,000 patients reached and present in more than 25 healthcare systems, has achieved an adherence rate of over 95% in the different HaH units where it is implemented. Among its benefits in the field of home hospitalization, its ability to automate morning follow-up calls stands out, freeing up time for medical staff and helping them focus on the more complex needs of patients.
In this way, LOLA can help hospitals ensure that patients receive constant, high-quality care while maintaining an essential human touch. In some cases, it has reduced hospital stays by 26 per cent and the 30-day readmission rate by over 50 per cent.
In the words of Marcos Rubio Rubio, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Tucuvi: “Our clinical team works hand in hand with the clinical teams of each HaH to adapt processes to the needs of patients and the program. In this way, we help them scale these programs, prioritize, and, most importantly, efficiently and safely serve more patients. We have outstanding acceptance from professionals and patients. The latter have rated our solution with a 4.8 out of 5, and professionals registered on the platform use it daily.”
Tucuvi is a HealthTech company specialized in the development of Conversational Artificial Intelligence solutions with a human touch that seeks to make healthcare more accessible and more efficient. With the aim of providing a continuous, personal and tailored follow-up to each patient from home, we have developed “Tucuvi Healthcare Manager”, the first automatic patient follow-up platform through phone calls.
Thanks to its virtual clinical assistant “LOLA”, Tucuvi can alleviate the workload of healthcare professionals and increase the efficiency of hospitals and medical centers through a personalized, close and accessible solution.
Present in large healthcare systems such as Spain, UK and Portugal, and with more than 1M conversations, LOLA frees up to 70 peer cent of nursing teams’ time and reduces the average length of hospital stay by 26%. Certified with the CE Mark by the Spanish Medicines Agency as a medical device, with ISO27001 certification and the National Security Scheme, Tucuvi complies with the most robust data protection standards.
