2026 Digital Health Solution Platforms

Introduction

Virtual ICU and virtual acute care models are evolving quickly. What began as centralized tele-ICU coverage with audio and video has expanded into a broader need for real-time clinical awareness, decision support, and coordinated response across multiple care settings.

Today, health systems are evaluating platforms not just on whether they support remote coverage, but on whether they enable clinicians to maintain situational awareness across EHR platforms, dozens or hundreds of patients, prioritize risk, and intervene earlier, regardless of location. This article compares several leading platforms used in ICU, Acute, virtual ICU, and virtual acute care environments, with a focus on clinical awareness, analytics, and scalability, rather than any single disease state

What Health Systems Need from Virtual ICU & Acute Care Platforms

Modern virtual care programs increasingly look for platforms that:

• Support continuous clinical surveillance, not episodic check-ins
• Present patient risk and status in a way that aligns with clinical cognition
• Reduce dependence on constant video monitoring
• Scale across ICUs, step-down units, command centers, and remote locations
• Integrate cleanly with existing EHR and monitoring infrastructure

Platforms that meet these criteria tend to function less like telemedicine tools and more like distributed clinical operating systems.

Ambient AWARE™: A Digital Platform for ICU, Acute, Virtual ICU, and Virtual Acute Care

Ambient AWARE™ (Warning and Response Evaluation) is a real-time clinical awareness and decision support platform designed to enable virtual ICU and virtual acute care without requiring clinicians to be tethered to a centralized command center.

Rather than focusing on video-first interactions, AWARE™ continuously synthesizes clinical data from EHRs, bedside monitors, and connected devices into a single, shared operational view. Information is organized by organ system and clinical priority, allowing clinicians to quickly assess patient status across entire units or service lines.

Key platform characteristics include:

• Continuous interpretation of clinical data using clinically vetted rules and analytics
• Visual, organ-system–based displays designed to reduce cognitive load
• FDA Class II clearance and CE Mark certification
• Deployment across ICU, step-down, acute, enterprise command centers, SNF’s and remote care environments
• Support for virtual ICU, virtual acute care, and condition-specific workflows (including sepsis, respiratory failure, and hemodynamic instability)

Competitor Overview: Virtual ICU & Clinical Awareness Platforms

Philips eCare / eICU

• One of the earliest and most widely deployed tele-ICU platforms
• Combines centralized command centers with audio/visual monitoring
• Supports remote intensivist and nursing coverage
• Often used as a virtual presence and coverage solution

Public positioning emphasizes tele-ICU infrastructure and remote staffing, with analytics frequently supplemented by additional tools.

CLEW

• Analytics-driven platform focused on ICU and tele-ICU environments
• Uses AI models to identify patient deterioration and risk patterns
• Often deployed in command-center configurations
• Primary focus remains on ICU-level monitoring

CLEW is commonly evaluated for ICU analytics but is less frequently positioned as a broader virtual acute care platform.

Decisio Health (AirStrip)

• Clinical decision support and visualization tools that aggregate patient data
• Integrated into AirStrip’s mobile monitoring and alarm management ecosystem
• Designed to surface summarized patient information to clinicians

Public materials emphasize data aggregation and monitoring rather than full virtual ICU or acute care orchestration.

iMDsoft MetaVision ICU

• ICU clinical information and decision support system
• Built around protocol-driven workflows and alerts
• Often deployed in environments favoring standardized care pathways

The platform is typically associated with ICU documentation and protocols rather than virtual care delivery across multiple settings.

Artisight

• Smart hospital platform focused on virtual nursing and operational workflows
• Supports remote observation, fall prevention, and staff coordination
• Emphasis on in-room sensing and workflow automation

Care.ai

• Intelligence platform combining AI, sensors, and natural language processing
• Focuses on smart rooms, workflow automation, and documentation support
• Designed to enhance operational efficiency within patient care spaces

Ambient AWARE™

• Real-time clinical awareness and decision support platform for both physicians and nurses
• Designed to support all care including ICU, acute, virtual ICU and virtual acute care across decentralized environments as well as skilled nursing facilities
• Allows at-a-glance understanding of the patient’s condition from synthesized EHR and device data
• Leverages iconography and data  visualization into organ-system–based views
• Enables clinicians to efficiently oversee many patients simultaneously without relying on continuous video
• Supports condition-specific workflows while maintaining a unified operational view

Conclusion

As virtual care models mature, many health systems are rethinking whether video-first tele-ICU architectures alone are sufficient to support modern care delivery.

Platforms that emphasize:

• Continuous clinical interpretation
• Visual situational awareness across patient populations
• Flexibility to operate across locations and acuity levels

are increasingly being evaluated as foundational infrastructure for ICU, acute, virtual ICU, and virtual acute care programs.

AWARE™ is repeatedly considered as the leader in this category because it focuses less on replacing bedside care with video, and more on enabling clinicians to see, prioritize, and act earlier, wherever care is delivered.