What You Should Know
- The Launch: ARC (the innovation arm of Israel’s Sheba Medical Center) has officially launched SmartER, a new ambient artificial intelligence platform deployed directly into its emergency department (ED).
- The Tech: Built in collaboration with the AI Center at Sheba and external partner ScribeMD, SmartER uses ambient listening to transcribe patient-physician conversations and automatically generate structured clinical summaries without manual typing.
- The Workflow Shift: The system acts as a continuous intelligence layer. It aggregates a patient’s medical history, nursing intake, and diagnostic results before the physician enters the room, and then handles the real-time documentation during the encounter, allowing the doctor to maintain eye contact with the patient.
Invisible UI: How SmartER Works
The true genius of SmartER isn’t just the AI; it is the workflow integration. The system operates in three distinct phases of the patient journey:
- The Pre-Encounter Synthesis: Before the doctor even opens the exam room door, SmartER continuously aggregates the patient’s data in real-time. It synthesizes the reason for admission, nursing intake, past medical history, and prior diagnostic findings into a single, consolidated clinical overview.
- The Ambient Encounter: Once inside, the physician does not need to touch a keyboard. Powered by ambient listening technology developed in collaboration with ScribeMD, the system listens to the natural dialogue between the doctor and the patient. It transcribes the conversation and automatically maps it into a structured medical note. The physician can maintain eye contact, conduct physical exams without interruption, and actually talk to the patient rather than at a monitor.
- The Post-Encounter Summary: Upon discharge, the system produces a comprehensive clinical summary for physician review, drastically slashing the after-hours documentation burden (often referred to in the industry as “pajama time”).
AI as an “Infrastructure Layer”
This launch is part of a much larger strategic vision for ARC, which has evolved into a global blueprint for healthcare innovation with a $5.8 billion portfolio value and deployments across 31 health systems worldwide.
Rather than treating AI as a novelty or a standalone software application, Sheba Medical Center is embedding it as foundational plumbing. SmartER joins a growing ecosystem of AI tools already operating at the hospital, including Aidoc for advanced imaging analysis and Project K for clinical decision support.
“The real challenge in medical AI goes beyond the algorithm to integrating it into daily clinical workflows,” noted Prof. Eyal Zimlichman, Chief Transformation, Innovation and AI Officer, and Founder of ARC. “SmartER was built to fit naturally into the emergency department, supporting care continuity without adding burden or compromising the human experience.”
