Intelligent Health.tech Issue 29 | Page 39

I N D U S T R Y I N V E S T I G A T I O N

AI TO ASSIST NURSES : NEW RESEARCH PROJECT REVEALS THE POTENTIAL OF TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTHCARE IN FINLAND

In many countries , the social welfare sector is struggling with enormous costcutting pressures , labour shortage and the growing demand for its services . VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland , together with its partners , is taking part in an international research project on how Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) could support the work of nurses . In addition to VTT , Finnish participants include Turku University of Applied Sciences , the University of Eastern Finland , the Northern Savo and Southwest Finland wellbeing services counties , Mediconsult , Oiva Health and Solita .

Various digital tasks , such as patient registration , reviewing patient information , familiarising with instructions and giving them , take up a significant part of nurses ’ daily working hours . Reducing the time consumed on these tasks with the help of better technological solutions could free up working time for patient encounters and lighten the nurses ’ workload .

“ For instance , the German consultancy TLGG has estimated that if utilised properly ,
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