At ISE 2026, the intersection of AV, digital infrastructure, and healthcare innovation was on full show.
Maria Ripoll Bartrolí, Head of Open Innovation on the Barcelona & Madrid Well being Hub, spoke to UC Right this moment about how know-how is reshaping affected person care, medical workflows, and the way the hub operates as a catalyst for collaboration throughout the healthcare ecosystem – bringing collectively startups, scale-ups, hospitals, large companies, and buyers to speed up digital well being innovation.
“We’re a nonprofit however non-public affiliation devoted to dynamizing the ecosystem in digital well being,” she defined.
“Proper now now we have greater than 600 members in additional than 90 international locations – startups, scale-ups, hospitals, large companies like pharma and insurance coverage, and buyers.”
She famous that the hub’s work is particularly very important given the pressures healthcare techniques face: ageing populations, continual ailments, workforce shortages, and rising affected person expectations.
“All of us wish to stay extra, however I wish to stay higher as properly – so all these options find yourself reaching the affected person or the skilled to total enhance lives.”
AV and techniques integration are underpinning most of the instruments that make digital well being viable – from safe video platforms and collaboration areas to immersive simulation and information visualisation environments.
AV as a Important Enabler in Fashionable Care
Ripoll Bartrolí highlighted sensible methods AV is bettering the healthcare expertise, significantly by decreasing friction between clinicians and sufferers. Startups at the moment are utilizing audio seize and AI to transcribe consultations in actual time, permitting medical doctors to concentrate on sufferers as an alternative of screens.
“We now have startups which are listening to the affected person once they come to a seek the advice of, so the physician doesn’t should be typing and never even wanting within the eyes of the affected person,” she stated.
For AV professionals and integrators, this represents a shift: microphone placement, room acoustics, digital camera positioning, show design, and system reliability instantly have an effect on medical workflow, affected person belief, and outcomes. On this sense, AV has develop into a part of the care expertise itself.
Past Telemedicine: Digital Twins and Simulation
Whereas telemedicine stays a outstanding software, Ripoll Bartrolí pointed to rising applied sciences like digital twins and simulation as the subsequent frontier.
“We hear so much about AI, and naturally that is breakthrough,” she stated. “However what is absolutely revolutionary now’s digital twins – to have the ability to take a look at procedures, to check tablets, to check digital issues with out having the affected person struggling the implications.”
These functions depend on superior visualisation, high-performance shows, real-time information feeds, and immersive environments – all areas the place AV and techniques integration are important.
Surgical planning rooms, medical training labs, and simulation environments now permit healthcare professionals to check and be taught in ways in which had been not possible only a decade in the past.
Integrating Expertise into Workflows
Regardless of the potential, Ripoll Bartrolí emphasised that know-how alone shouldn’t be sufficient. Adoption will depend on seamless integration into medical workflows and incomes the belief of medical professionals.
“One of many primary limitations is to have the ability to combine these options seamlessly, with the belief of the medical doctors,” she stated. “And in order that sufferers, who’re at their most susceptible moments, additionally really feel relaxed with what they’re being handled with.”
Resistance is comprehensible: after years of coaching and follow, medical doctors may be hesitant to alter routines. However seeing profitable implementations, akin to AI-assisted session instruments, helps overcome that hesitation.
“Learning medication is so lengthy, after which while you get right into a behavior of doing what you do and it really works, you don’t actually see a necessity for it altering.
“In the event that they’re coming to your follow and saying you’re not going to be doing what you’ve achieved all of your life anymore, that may be form of resistant.”
For know-how suppliers, integrators, and exhibitors, this underscores a key lesson: success in healthcare isn’t just about innovation – it’s about usability, reliability, and understanding how care really occurs.
Regulation: Barrier and Safeguard
Regulation is one other necessary consideration. Whereas typically seen as a hurdle, Ripoll Bartrolí framed it as a needed safeguard in an business coping with delicate information and susceptible sufferers.
“Regulation is pricey and it’s thorough and it’s gradual, but it surely must be like that,” she stated. “We’re treating with sufferers. We’re treating with their delicate information, and now we have to have the ability to deal with it accurately.”
For AV and IT professionals working in healthcare, this impacts system design, cybersecurity, information dealing with, and compliance – all of that are more and more intertwined with built-in AV/IT deployments.
Wanting forward, Ripoll Bartrolí emphasised collaboration as important for advancing healthcare innovation.
“Everyone needs their product to be the most effective,” she stated. “However generally we’re a bit blindsided by what’s subsequent to us. I want to see extra collaboration – extra success circumstances, extra hospitals and firms working collectively on merchandise which have actually been profitable.”
