13 May 2024 (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) - Today at the inaugural Abu Dhabi Global Healthcare Week (ADGHW), RAIN Technology ME LTD announced “Orva,” the first-ever OR voice AI assistant designed to drive perioperative efficiency and improved care quality for surgical teams. Orva has been in co-development alongside leading global hospitals and surgery centres, and taps into nearly a decade of enterprise-level and healthcare-focused voice technology development at parent company RAIN.
While voice tech has become commonplace documenting encounters in primary care settings, the OR has yet to realise the significant potential of hands-free, AI natural-language solutions. In the often chaotic environment of the OR - where multi-disciplinary teams juggle numerous responsibilities under significant time pressure - it is notoriously difficult to capture accurate data and facilitate real-time coordination across service lines. As a result, optimization is elusive; 61% of all procedures experience a delay, with one hour lost per delay on average (Van Winkle, 2016) and each minute of OR time representing up to $178/minute in hospital revenue (UAE orthopaedic surgery benchmarks).
“Operating rooms are a critical venue for patient care delivery, and the revenue engines of hospitals worldwide, but they continue to be plagued by acute and systemic inefficiencies and lapses in care quality,” said Abbes Seqqat, President of RAIN. “The OR is ripe for disruption from emerging technology, and Orva’s vision is to leverage the power of voice and AI to be at the forefront of that transformation.”
Through a multi-modal, voice-first interface, Orva enables surgical care team members to document perioperative milestones, efficiently and accurately, using natural language spoken inputs. These data points generate real-time alerts across hospital departments where costly bottlenecks and delays typically arise, such as patient in-take and the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), and feed analytics that measure OR performance. Trained on a wide range of accents reflected in the UAE’s diverse, majority-expat healthcare workforce, Orva empowers teams to track surgical progress simply by saying “Hey Orva,” and speaking their inputs in natural language. Untethered from computer terminals and complex EHR interfaces, caregivers are able to focus their attention where it matters most - on patients.
By delivering more efficient coordination around a given case and more accurate data on trends across many cases, Orva enables hospitals to find efficiencies in the moment - and over time. Reducing turnover times and achieving more predictable, on-time case durations allows hospitals to optimise OR utilisation, and better meet market demand for additional caseload - all while helping minimise staff burnout that can degrade care quality. Further, studies in veterinary surgery have shown voice assistants reduced total surgery time by 9% and average time to perform a function by 42%, while also contributing to a safer, more hygienic surgical environment through reduced surface touching (Kim et al, 2021).
“OR staff, and circulating nurses in particular, are routinely juggling competing priorities - focusing on the patient, coordinating between team members, documenting the procedure, and managing unplanned events,” said Kim Conti, VP of Product for Orva. “With Orva, we’re aiming to give OR professionals the freedom to focus more on what matters most - patients - by fusing cutting-edge technology with a natural, workflow-driven approach to product design.”
Orva is partnering with select healthcare providers in the UAE to pilot Orva. To learn more about Orva, please contact hello@orvahealth.com.
About Orva
Orva is the world’s first purpose-built operating room voice assistant, created by longtime voice innovator RAIN Technology, Inc. Orva empowers perioperative teams to save time and improve care through hands-free perioperative milestone tracking, real-time team coordination, surgical documentation assistance, and more. Orva is working toward delivering on a vision for the future of surgical care - one where AI is responsibly deployed to empower care teams, where data is trustworthy and actionable in the moment, and where generating meaningful efficiency accompanies, rather than conflicts with, delivering an elevated standard of care. To learn more, visit orvahealth.com.
About RAIN Technology ME LTD
RAIN Technology ME LTD (RAIN) is a voice AI pioneer transforming how healthcare is delivered through speech & natural language technologies. RAIN’s flagship product, Orva (the OR Voice Assistant), provides hands-free tools that enable care teams to achieve measurable OR efficiencies, while improving quality of care. Since 2020, RAIN has served as the leading partner for voice and conversational AI initiatives at the largest healthcare system in the United States. RAIN’s award-winning track record of voice innovation has included multi-year strategic partnerships with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung Bixby, and Microsoft, as well as building the voice AI applications of two dozen F500 companies. RAIN is dual-headquartered in Abu Dhabi and the New York City metro area.
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