Maternity patients at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children have a new helper in their rooms.
Her name is Kumu.
Based on Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant, Kumu has been customized for patients who can ask it to play music and games and check the weather outside, or ask questions such as: When are visiting hours? What time is the dining room open? How much is parking? How frequently should my baby be eating?
“I used it last night just to ask questions. I found it useful ’cause then I don’t have to call the nurse or call anyone in here,” said Sherri Ho, who gave birth Tuesday to daughter Kaya Combis. “But everything else, like asking where I can get her birth certificate, how to fill out forms, what classes they have and stuff like that. Whatever they provide, I can ask Kumu.”
Hawaii Pacific Health, the hospital’s parent company, in January created nearly two dozen “smart rooms” using the technology as a pilot project, with plans to cover the entire 52-room Mother Baby Care Unit by the summer and expand later throughout the more than 600-bed system, which includes Straub Medical Center, Pali Momi Medical Center and Wilcox Medical Center on Kauai.
“We intend to continue on this journey and expand on those skills where we can foresee that Kumu is going to be our nurse call system and potentially be the way patients can access and activate functions like their TV or patient education videos, so it would be more of a smart-patient room much like many people these days have smart homes,” said James Lin, director of medical informatics for HPH.
The initiative is part of Hawaii Pacific Health’s efforts to expand services and improve satisfaction as providers compete for a larger pool of the patient population. The health system already runs an online portal called MyChart that gives patients round-the-clock access to their medical information and allows them to connect with their doctors via e-visits — an online visit with a primary-care physician as an alternative to having to come into the office for nonemergency conditions. The next target will be integrating MyChart into Kumu and bringing the device into patients’ homes to help them manage their care to improve outcomes.
“We are going to be one of the first health care systems … to bring this to our patients in Hawaii where a patient can ask when their next appointment is or potentially use it to order a medication refill. We also hope to integrate telemedicine with this Alexa MyChart at home so patients can talk to their clinicians with a tablet through their Alexa home device.”
Hawaii Pacific Health plans to eventually distribute devices with both a display and a front-facing camera for video calling to select patients who have difficulty coming into a clinic or hospital.
“We intend by the end of June 2020 to have 100 Alexa devices in patient homes … so we can provide health care without necessarily needing walls,” Lin said. “Essentially, it’s virtual health care and helps patients learn more about their own health. With better chronic disease control, we anticipate healthier patients and, therefore, less health care complications or potential admissions.”
Health insurers as well as government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, the medical insurance program for seniors and low-income residents, respectively, are now paying for telemedicine visits, making it another stream of revenue for providers.
Examples of questions that patients can ask Kumu:
>> What classes are available?
>> How much is parking? Is there valet parking?
>> When does the cafeteria open?
>> Where can I get my medical records?
>> When is my follow-up appointment?
>> How frequently should my baby be eating?
