THE ROOM OF THE FUTURE

TWO INNOVATIVE ICU ROOMS SIGNAL A NEW ERA FOR CARE AND CONNECTION

BY DAVE SCHEIBER

It is a bold, boundary-pushing symbol of Tampa General Hospital’s master facility plan: a unique intensive care unit room with a window onto the next generation of care.

This room is far more than four walls to house seriously ailing patients. In fact, it is an innovation that holds a new vision—created to behave more like a team member than anything else. Equipped for a wide range of key, nonclinical tasks, it allows nurses and other clinicians to fully focus on the essence of their craft: helping patients.

And the name perfectly conveys its boundless potential: the room of the future.

The new entity—currently in use in two modernized, high-tech rooms—exists within TGH’s revamped intensive care unit (ICU) launched in June 2021. The $17.5 million project includes 34 state-of-the-art ICU rooms encompassing some 27,500 square feet. With 100 more ICU beds on the horizon, TGH has plans to incorporate more rooms of the future going forward.

The cutting-edge concept arose from the crosscurrents of competing health care headwinds, explained Jason Swoboda, TGH’s director of innovation.

“One headwind is a shift in patient satisfaction and in coming to view patients as consumers,” he said. “You can easily look up clinician and hospital scores today, so there’s a constant focus on improving outcomes. This headwind is in the form of shaping the health care environment.”

Another is connected to team member satisfaction and the nationwide shortage of nurses and clinicians. During the conceptual process, there was an opportunity, Swoboda explained, to support them in their passion—caring for patients—rather than being bogged down in extraneous tasks that could be handled by technology.

A third headwind is the rising cost of health care in general.

“We wanted to do something to improve quality outcomes, improve patient satisfaction, and help our team members, all while lowering the

The ICU rooms of the future feature multipurpose smart boards that help caregivers track patient information, in addition to exterior smart displays that inform the care team and visitors of what precautions are necessary before entering a room.

cost of care,” Swoboda added. “So, we took those headwinds against us and thought, ‘What if we could make the room a team member? And if it were a team member, how would we want it to behave?’”

That question guided the development of the room of the future. Hospital team members and a patient advisory committee provided input on the room’s ideal attributes, asking how such a room could advance TGH’s quest to be America’s safest and most innovative academic health system.

One scenario quickly emerged: code blue. In the event of a cardiac arrest, every second counts. When a code blue is activated, the room of the future automatically moves into action: muting the TV volume, turning up the room lights, lowering the shades, and more—all steps that can shave off valuable seconds when time is of the essence.

“We wondered, ‘How could these four walls, instead of simply being bland and inanimate, become an active participant with the care team of the nurse, physician, or technician?’” said Dr. Nishit Patel, TGH’s chief informatics offi cer.

Another solution came in the form of a digital, multipurpose board as the centerpiece of the room, replacing the traditional erasable white board. The electronic board updates the patient’s vital signs and keeps track of special instructions. The information is instantly displayed for medical staff and patients to see.

“A lot of what we ask our bedside nurses to do is take information and add it to the marker board,” Patel said. “A great deal of time is spent with people literally just writing on a board, updating dietary orders and various data. Oftentimes, that’s not really value added—the value is in the conversations happening, for example, between the nurse and patient around the goals for the day, for what the diet change means, their pain scores, or any number of situations.

“Not only does the new board take away some of the operational ineffi ciency and factors that contribute to burnout, but it frees up the clinicians to do the actual clinical care of the patients. When you add these things up, there’s a lot of value returned in terms of effi ciency and providing quality care.”

Of equal importance is the potential of the board to help avoid delays. Notes, instructions, and guidelines are also simultaneously displayed on a digital board outside of the room, so key updates about a patient’s condition or labs can be clearly and quickly communicated to the entire care team.

“Imagine that as soon as a physician puts in a dietary order—stopping food for a patient so a procedure can be done, for example—that instruction is instantly updated on the digital board in the room and outside of it for all to see,” Patel said.

Another scenario: A swab to check for a virus has come back positive, meaning a new type of precaution must be implemented immediately. The information appears within moments on the digital board, eliminating any potential delays.

“The thing about innovation is that it’s always changing,” said Rachel Feinman, TGH’s vice president of innovation. “We need to continue to innovate, identify new solutions, and fi nd new ways to improve on the quality of care. That way it will always be the room of the future, not the present.”

That means more enhancements are in the works. These include ways to digitally display X-rays to share with patients, allow for virtual check-ins from medical staff, and let patients communicate easily with family and friends via video connections.

“We’ve taken these different scenarios and created a room that will help provide high satisfaction for our patients and families,” Swoboda said. “And above all, it will allow our clinicians to focus on what they love to do most: take care of patients.”

Jason Swoboda

Dr. Nishit Patel

Rachel Feinman