WVU Medicine United Hospital Center Opens Innovative New 28-Bed Unit with AI-Powered Rooms
By Michael Minnich on May 30, 2026
The future is now the present at WVU Medicine United Hospital Center.
The ribbon was cut on Friday on an innovative 28-bed medical-surgical unit on the seventh floor of the hospital that will employ cutting-edge technology and AI to enhance the treatment experience for patients and the medical providers that help them.
“Growing up here, my mom was a former nurse at the old UHC,” WVU Medicine UHC President and CEO Dr. David Hess said. “I know thar out nurses are the frontline caregivers for us, so to be able to bring this to our hospital really is about the patients first, but the nursing staff is a close second.
“To be able to give them technology to make their jobs be a little bit easier and a little bit more efficient means everything to me.”
The project, which creates the first such unit in West Virginia, cost $2 million dollars, according to Dr. Hess.
Cardiac and respiratory patients will be the main focus of these new rooms, as well as some neurology patients.
“If you think of someone with a stroke, how closely we have to monitor those patients, having the ability to have an AI-assisted technology to watch and monitor our patients in the bed, make sure they don’t have any signs of worsening stroke or worsening neurological symptoms makes a lot of sense to us,” Dr. Hess said.
Members of the WVU Medicine UHC team that worked on the project also provided tours and demonstrations of the new technology in action.
The “Intelligent Patient Rooms” have an impressive array of technology in them, including non-recording cameras that detect incidents like patient falls and can also easily measure and virtually observe with cameras things like IV levels and status of medication while also allowing for communication between patients, doctors and nurses from outside of the room through the camera, microphones and an LED screen in the room.
“We learned a lot during COVID,” Dr. Hess said. “I think one of the things that we learned about is efficient care. During COVID, people would have to put on protective equipment, go into the room, ask a patient what they needed, come out of the room, change, get what they need, get their gear back on and go back to the room.
“I think what this allows the nurses and our entire care team to do is be a little more efficient…one trip in, one trip out.”
But: “Technology never replaces human touch. It never replaces caring and compassion. It never replaces kindness,” Dr. Hess said. “We’re about trying to make (nurses) efficient so that they can totally focus on that human touch and that kind, compassionate care that’s been a hallmark of UHC for years.”
One demonstration during the tour included a person acting as a patient going through the various levels of computer-generated privacy that include blurring the entire person and replacing them on the screen with a stick figure that mirrors their real movements, or blurring the room altogether for privacy reasons.
Digital whiteboards in the room can display anything from vital signs like heart rates, to daily goals, to information like the names of the professionals providing care.
“When I walk in the door, they see my face and they already know who am I based on what the patient board displays, so I’m not just a stranger walking into their family member’s room.” Dr. Brandon Shiflett, a staff pulmonologist with the UHC Lung Center, said. “They have a bird’s eye view of who their patient care team is and I think that goes a long way.”
Dr. Shiflett shared a story of treating a patient whose family had seen his name, looked it up online, and found out he liked dogs and went to Marshall University, helping build an immediate connection and common ground.
The cameras and screens can also include calls with family members outside the hospital through an emailed or texted link that does not require the download of a special app.
“There’s some very complicated things that we explain to families and we know that families come and go through when patients are cared for in the hospital,” Dr. Hess said. “I think to be able to tell somebody, ‘Do you want me to bring your son or daughter into the conversation?’ and to quickly make that phone call to them means the world to these patients.”
Outside of the rooms are what David Meyer, who started the tour to describe the nursing side of the additions, called a “workstation on wheels” that allow doctors and nurses to access electronic medical records, be able to print results from the lab, scan items like the patient’s badge, medications and blood products.
Meyer also showed off seven new dedicated stations for signing electronic medical records and handling charts, updates and orders.
Senior network engineer Heather Clarke gave a tour and overview of the technology inside of the room.
A camera above the LED screen has a light that shows the patient when they are being monitored, a status that also shows clearly on the screen. The cameras also work in complete darkness to allow for the same amount of risk monitoring.
“This allows the virtual provider or virtual observer or nurse to connect with them securely,” Clarke said. “The camera can also do ambient monitoring, where they don’t actually have to be viewing the patient, but the AI can still see what is happening.”
“It’s going to augment and double-check what we’re doing as humans,” Dr. Hess said. “I think when used in that manner, it’s the safest, most technologically advanced and most innovative way to offer care. Certainly, we understand that there are going to be issues with privacy and maybe not trusting AI. What I would tell the public is that we’re not replacing anything that we’re already dong. We’re having AI help us deliver the best care we can possibly give.”
Clarke then showed off her “favorite part”, the digital whiteboard, which can be accessed by the badges or by entering the numeric code of the medical provider.
“It integrates with our electronic medical record system, so all the information we see here is current,” Clarke said, pulling up sample information to demonstrate. “They can pull up the patient’s X-rays or CT scans and go through them with the patient within the room.”
Any new data entered by care providers on the digital whiteboard can then sync with the existing records to complete the loop.
“What I showed you today is only the beginning with this technology, there’s so much more to come,” Clarke said.
Analog improvements have been made to the rooms, too, including comfortable seating and tables that can be lowered or raised for family members or friends who are in the room with the patient to use for meals or for placement of personal effects during the visit.
Stephanie Smart, Vice President Nursing/Chief Nursing Officer, noted that the improved technology and care will also help with the daily problems of capacity, especially in the emergency rooms.
“We are continuing to work on meeting our mission to get our patients out of our emergency department at a quicker rate and also in from our regional sister hospitals and partners across the state,” Smart said. “Our leadership team talks about, ‘What are we going to do next? How are we going to create more space? How can we get our patients where they need to be and where they want to be, and how can we do it fast?’
“Opening this department is one step in that direction.”
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