The Ambient Clinical Analytics Real Time Health System Story
I first met Al Berning in 2010 on the grounds of St Mary’s hospital in Rochester, while Al was a Mayo entrepreneur in residence. My colleagues and I had just finished developing and evaluating our very first version of AWARE. We knew we had created an innovative and game changing solution for providers that would drive organizations to become real time health systems. We felt on top of the world because we could now use AWARE to filter through the noise in the EMR and direct our attention straight to the data we had identified as being essential for the timely management of critically ill patients.Prior to AWARE, we spent hours in a quiet back room off the main ICU clinical areas, scouring through the EMR for the information we needed to develop situational awareness for each of our patients. With those first versions of AWARE we were testing the efficacy and safety of treating a limited number of patients with a filtered data set and were extremely satisfied with the results. The widespread introduction of AWARE to our clinical practice coincided with the release of the first generations of the iPad and later the iPad Mini. Loaded with a suitable VPN connection, we were now liberated entirely from the back-room routine of data abstraction and synthesis and had the ability to go directly to the bedside. The ability to speak with a patient, look them in the eye and at the same time, using data visualization to quickly access their relevant clinical data in AWARE, on a handheld device, was magical and allowed us to function as a real time health system!
We had unlocked the data contained in the EMR and transformed it into real time health information doctors and nurses could act on while standing at the bedside of the critically ill patient. We immediately knew the importance of this innovation for patient care in any unit of a hospital and were convinced that we had something profound to share with the world. Like all great enthusiasts, we had difficulty containing our excitement and distilling down the essence of our innovation for anyone unfortunate enough to sit across a table from us! Despite our verbosity and enthusiastic proclamations, Al quickly recognized the value of what we accomplished and how AWARE would decrease provider fatigue, reduce errors, and save lives. With his easy mid-western competence and history of success he was the ideal partner to bring AWARE to market.
Nearly 10 years later, our relationship is still going strong. Al and the Ambient Clinical Analytics team have done a tremendous job guiding our innovations through patent filings, regulation approvals, funding rounds, product development, sales and customer support. In retrospect, although we knew we had created something special, we had no idea exactly how much the AWARE solution would positively impact patient care and health care organizations by allowing provider organizations to move towards a real time health system.
Dr. Brian Pickering M.B., B.CH Department of Anesthesiology, Mayo Clinic