24.06.2024 | At the AI hackathon hosted by Microsoft and Ultrahack, concrete AI solutions were developed to streamline the daily operations of the social and health care sector. Digital company Efima and care service provider Attendo collaborated to develop an AI assistant that automates the transfer of information between caregivers during shift work.
A study published by DigiFinland in spring 2024 emphasizes the growing potential of AI in the social and health care sector. The study identifies over 50 AI use cases that are feasible with current technology and data, and partly within the framework of existing legislation.
During the hackathon organized by Microsoft and Ultrahack from June 17th to 19th, over 20 teams aimed to materialize the use cases identified in the study into example solutions. Efima and Attendo’s joint team developed an AI assistant for Attendo’s care homes during the 3-day hackathon, which enhances the transfer of information between caregivers at the time of shift change – a critical moment in daily care work traditionally reliant on interpersonal communication among caregivers.
The AI assistant created at the hackathon provides the caregiver starting their shift with a summary of the residents and relevant information and actions for the upcoming shift. The AI assistant retrieves information from entries made in the resident information system and also acts as a chatbot-like tool for querying additional information. The application is designed for mobile work, allowing caregivers to communicate with the AI assistant by speaking and listening. The solution extensively utilizes Microsoft’s AI and low-code technologies and operates on the caregiver’s own work computer or phone.
Attendo’s Chief Information Officer, Jukka-Pekka Luhanko, sees the potential of the application to improve work well-being and resident safety in care work: “The application ensures that all critical resident information is reliably transferred from one shift to another, reducing reliance on memory. Additionally, the AI assistant removes language barriers by translating information into the nurse’s own language.”
The application is estimated to speed up information transfer by at least five minutes per shift change, which translates into significant time savings in Attendo’s over one million shift changes annually.
Efima and Attendo have previously collaborated on AI and are currently piloting a solution in Attendo’s care home that utilizes speech recognition to automate system entries. Efima’s Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Samuli Reinikainen, emphasizes the importance of long-term collaboration and bold experiments in AI development for the social and health care sector: “The hackathon was once again a good demonstration that the most impactful AI applications are created in close cooperation with the client. The development and ideation of AI solutions accelerate as developers become familiar with the social and health care sector.”
After the hackathon, selected solutions will be further developed in collaboration with well-being regions and Microsoft. Efima Oyj and Attendo Oy will continue their cooperation and share their learnings at an open post-hack event on September 12, 2024, where the companies will present the operating principles of the hackathon solution to other industry players. You can register for the event from this link (in Finnish).
More information
Efima, CTO Markus Turunen
markus.turunen@efima.com, +358 40 770 120
About Efima
Efima is a Finnish digital company that supports and enhances the business operations of large and medium-sized enterprises through cloud-based financial management, enterprise resource planning, and intelligent automation solutions. People, collaboration, and partnership are at the core of their approach.
www.efima.com
