The Region of Southern Denmark, with help from SAS, has become the first place in the world to implement a complete system for monitoring hospital-acquired infections. Professor Jens Kjølseth Møller at Lillebaelt Hospital is the brain behind the new system, which is made possible by SAS Analytics. Kjølseth Møller expects the system to reduce the number of infections during hospitalization by one-third, significantly increasing patient safety. "It is unsatisfying that patients admitted to Danish hospitals are at risk of further illness," says Peder Jest, Medical Director at Odense University Hospital. "The work of providing a high degree of patient safety and good infection hygiene is, therefore, a key focus area for the Region of Southern Denmark. With SAS, we now have the ability to monitor and predict the risk of hospital-acquired infections at a patient level."

Philips Healthcare has made a name for itself in the health IT market as a medical imaging device manufacturer. But Joseph Frassica, M.D., chief medical officer at Philips North America and head of Philips Research Americas, said the company is much more than that. "In the past, we've been thought of as a company that makes things, devices," Frassica said. "These days, about 60% of our research and development is focused on software, artificial intelligence, machine learning." Case in point: Philips Research North America, part of the company's global research organization and headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., has more than 450 employees working to develop and test cutting-edge products for the health IT market.

When patients go to the hospital to get treated for an illness, sometimes they end up far more sick than they were when they entered. In an effort to improve hospital hygiene standards and reduce the incidence of these infections, researchers have developed an AI camera-tracking system that automatically identifies when staffers and patients use hand sanitizer dispensers. The proposed vision-based smart hospital. The Yellow polygons indicate areas covered by the sensors. Researchers based at Stanford University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne conducted a trial of their system using depth cameras and computer-vision algorithms.