Quick Summary
SaaS-based vision AI pioneer IntelliSee leverages existing camera infrastructure to create safer, more secure healthcare settings for patients by acting as an emergency trigger for spotting dangerous situations.
AI continues to ripple through and affect society in profound ways. Still, it’s, a mistake to view it as a single entity: Different models — including language, knowledge, reasoning, and perceptual — exist in silos, serving various purposes and functions. How each technology is used depends on humans.
Security is layered, and AI is but just one of those layers. The best way to apply advances in AI is to combine them with human guidance to slip and fall maximize patient care quality, safety, and security.
For healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs), patient care and security is the clear and obvious number one priority. From simple slip-and-fall insurance cases to more serious active shooter situations, monitoring cameras can — when deployed correctly — help improve the safety of patients, staff, and visitors alike.
So why aren’t more HDOs using vision AI technology to achieve this outcome?
Vision AI SaaS company IntelliSee is best placed to answer that question. “You'd be surprised at the number of healthcare facilities that do not have IP [internet protocol] cameras — or do not have working cameras,” Maureen Pajerski, the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of IntelliSee, says. But AI-powered cameras are coming, and HDOs that are behind the curve on new technological developments should take the opportunity to proactively update their systems for better patient and staff safety.
Given that hospitals are frequently rated as more violent workplaces than jails in terms of physical assaults, the pressure is on to improve security within healthcare settings. The solution is straightforward: IntelliSee applies vision AI developments to existing camera infrastructure. HDOs can easily benefit from this new wave of improvements, provided they reach out to their local integrators for support and pay attention to and test new technologies.
The Right Angle on Vision AI
IntelliSee is a software as a service (SaaS) and Internet of Things (IoT) company with a single, clear mission: to improve the security of those in healthcare settings. It does this by applying advanced vision AI and leveraging “existing camera systems, which is key because every building has already spent an enormous amount of money on cameras,” Maureen highlights. Rather than training people on how to use new products, they want to interface with products people already know and understand.
As an open integrations platform, IntelliSee partners with systems integrators, which includes original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and value-added resellers (VARs). But from a go-to-market (GTM) standpoint, the company opts for the reseller channel for two primary reasons. First, VARs already have relationships with their customers meaning IntelliSee doesn’t have to build them. But just as crucially, when these customers deploy IntelliSee, they “almost always end up adding cameras,” Maureen says. “We don’t sell or install cameras — we just interface to their live stream, so we need a channel to support them.”
The most challenging aspect of deployment, she says, is identifying which cameras IntelliSee should monitor, as not all cameras are equally useful in where and how they’re set up. Distances and views matter: For example, detecting a gun from the top of a multistory building roof isn’t viable, unless radar technology with zoom capability is implemented.
Thereafter, it’s a matter of determining the total number of cameras and connecting them to the network and internet via the data center. Predictably, this is easier to do with centralized camera architecture, because decentralized architecture requires separate appliances for each camera on the network. “Every system gets smarter based on all of the other customers that are using the product,” Maureen says.
Active Shooter Protocol
Maintaining safety in hospital settings can often be as routine as establishing liability for slips and falls and creating environments where this is less likely to happen. But sometimes it’s more serious: Staff often deal with gunshot wounds, members of the public approaching with guns, and sometimes even pursuing patients.
It’s easiest to view IntelliSee as an emergency alert that automatically triggers based on what connected cameras see. Mass notification via overhead paging — rather than text or email alerts — alerts people to “high-end, stressful, catastrophic, emergency situations,” Maureen says.
“[Cameras’] are used extensively to try to improve security,” Maureen says. “But the truth of the matter is that they don't do anything to improve security.” That, of course, is without using AI.
Vision AI combined with mass notification systems — like overhead paging — can help manage active shooter events in hospitals with different codes.
Maureen points out that these codes are not consistently applied. But just as with "Code Blue" — signaling life-threatening situations like cardiac arrest to the appropriate clinicians and doctors on duty — they help security guards within hospitals to appropriately manage and de-escalate potentially dangerous situations before disaster strikes.
Security Is All About Layers
The primary issue that IntelliSee finds in potential customers is that so many HDOs either don’t have internet protocol (IP) cameras or rely on outdated analog equipment — immediately making them a poor fit for vision AI deployment. Quite simply, they lack the infrastructure, which is a critical element of IntelliSee’s ideal customer profile (ICP).
But for those hospitals in tougher areas and buildings that are open to the public, focusing on patient and staff security and safety means taking a traditionally reactive approach and making it proactive. Instead of viewing cameras purely as forensic devices for insurance companies to determine liability in slip and fall cases, IntelliSee’s solution encompasses everyone who sets foot in the hospital with a comprehensive approach to safety.
Maureen readily admits that even vision AI-powered cameras, while powerful, can easily be fooled if active shooters conceal weapons in backpacks, for example. While IntelliSee offers infinitely better monitoring than humans alone, AI doesn’t understand object permanence as a human child does. AI’s real potential lies in how human beings can use and collaborate with it. The ICP for vision AI cameras are customers both attentive to and realistic about viewing security as layers — including the all-important human element.
“People ask me a lot, should we automate our lockdown if [the camera] tells us it sees a gun?” Maureen explains. “And I say, you really shouldn't, because the truth is that the probability of something looking like a gun is far higher than the probability of a gun. IntelliSee needs human eyes on it, as well.”
How Do You Manage AI Hype (and Fear)?
The use of AI in all industries is still in its infancy. But ChatGPT’s release took the world by surprise. And while fear of job losses across the board is as high now as it was for weavers during the Industrial Revolution, job creation is more likely — just as it was then.
IntelliSee sees itself as carving a path forward across a new frontier. “This space reminds me of the early internet days when there were hundreds of players all battling it out,” Maureen says. “And it's a race to the customer because whoever gets the best data gets a smarter and better platform.”
Central to IntelliSee’s mission is ensuring that vision AI is used for good — despite its potential to be used for purposes like ethnic group identification. “It’s only as good as the data,” Maureen says, whose view is that ChatGPT made everyone more aware of what technology actually exists and is already being used — whether or not people realize it.
When solution providers and integrators proactively talk about AI, they help reassure the people using the technology that it’s safe. Just like protected patient information (PPI), data-driven AI-based technology can and should be treated with respect, instilling confidence in customers that there won’t be any serious breaches.
To this end, IntelliSee doesn’t take customer data off-site — customers have complete control and power of their video data and what they send to IntelliSee. It also only trains its model on video footage from security cameras rather than across the entire internet.
Final Thoughts
Young companies like IntelliSee frequently have longer roadmaps and bigger appetites than they do resources. However, due to the rapid evolution of AI, iterations and updates come thick and fast.
“We'll be able to monitor more cameras for less power, with less costly appliances,” Maureen says. IntelliSee also expects to be able to fine-tune the model based on customization for each customer, rather than running the same model across all customers. Currently, customers are seeing fewer (and sometimes no) false positives, even as they’re attempting to trick the AI systems into improving it.
“AI as part of hospital camera systems is going to be the standard in a few short years,” Maureen says. Ultimately, HDOs must be proactive about reaching out to their local integrator for support. “It is going to change the way they deliver safety to their staff, visitors, and patients.”
Maureen Pajerski is the Chief Commercial Officer of IntelliSee, with over 30 years of experience in sales and marketing leadership. Her expertise includes driving consistent, profitable growth and dominant market share by focusing on strategies that support customer and channel success. Throughout her career, she has worked with both manufacturers of mass notification security systems and systems Integrators specializing in technologies related to the implementation of layered security — including critical crisis communication in schools and hospitals.