Earlier this week, we introduced the new HCI.
Now we are going to explain what we actually built.
We will begin with HCI ONE Engine.
Engine is our device management and integration platform. It can manage any HCI whiteboard and any smart hospital grade television.
Samsung. LG. Philips. PDi.
It can also manage iOS devices.
Yes, we can do it.
No, it would not be my first recommendation.
Engine is a new name, but the technology underneath it is not new.
We originally built the platform, then called Mediacare, for our largest customer in Florida.
This was a major health system that renovated all twenty two of its hospitals with 43 inch HCI televisions.
At the time, it was the biggest project we had ever done.
It was also the beginning of something much larger.
We completed our first Cerner integration around 2008, give or take a year. After doing this for twenty years, the exact year becomes slightly less important than the fact that we were connecting patient room technology to the medical record before many companies had decided what to call it.
Mediacare enrolled devices, distributed software, managed configurations, controlled content, moved clinical information, and kept thousands of hospital televisions doing what they were supposed to do.
We built it for one customer.
It became the foundation underneath nearly everything HCI built afterward.
Most people outside HCI never heard the name.
Honestly, many people inside HCI probably could not agree on how to capitalize it.
Today, Mediacare is HCI ONE Engine.
Same foundation.
Better interface.
Better name.
Much easier to explain.
Several years later, that same Florida customer asked us to build a set top box platform.
When your largest and best customer asks you to build something, you generally do not respond with a lecture about long term architecture.
You say, “Absolutely. When do you need it?”
So, we built the boxes.
They were good boxes.
For about two years.
Then they were not.
The hardware aged. Operating systems changed. Power supplies failed. Connections came loose. Boxes disappeared behind televisions. Support became harder and more expensive.
Every room now had another device, another cable, another network connection, and another possible answer to the question, “Why is the television not working?”
Eventually, the customer moved on.
They are not our customer anymore.
That is difficult to admit, but it is true.
We gave a great customer what it requested instead of giving it the architecture it would need five years later.
Sometimes experience comes from successfully renovating twenty two hospitals.
Sometimes it comes from losing the customer afterward.
Both lessons count.
I have been doing this for twenty years.
I have learned the difference between something that looks good in a demonstration and something that still works inside a hospital years later.
Extra set top boxes usually do not.
Locked down iPads usually do not.
Closed systems that require hospitals to purchase every device from one company definitely do not.
Modern hospital grade televisions are already smart devices.
Digital whiteboards are smart devices.
They can run applications directly, receive updates, report status, display content, and connect with hospital systems.
The answer should not always be to hang another box behind them.
HCI ONE Engine can manage any HCI whiteboard and any smart hospital grade television.
Applications can run directly on the display.
Software and firmware can be distributed remotely.
Configurations and channel lineups can be managed centrally.
Device status can be monitored.
Clinical information can move through the same platform.
Fewer devices mean fewer cables, fewer power supplies, fewer failure points, and fewer mysterious objects mounted behind televisions.
This is not complicated technology strategy.
It is basic arithmetic.
A hospital may say it has four hundred televisions.
What it usually has is one hundred Samsung televisions, one hundred fifty LG televisions, eighty Philips televisions, forty PDi televisions, and thirty devices that nobody remembers purchasing.
There may be several generations of hardware, different firmware versions, different configurations, and different channel lineups.
At least one television is probably listed in a spreadsheet as being in a room that no longer exists.
That is normal.
Hospitals grow. Units move. Buildings are renovated. Hardware is replaced in phases.
Engine is designed for the equipment the hospital actually owns, not the perfect fleet shown in a sales presentation.
The technology team can see the devices, group them, schedule updates, distribute configurations, and verify the results remotely.
There will still be exceptions.
There are always exceptions.
If everything in healthcare technology worked perfectly on the first attempt, most of us would become suspicious.
But the exceptions become the work instead of the entire hospital.
After twenty years, I am convinced that hospitals need open architecture.
They need the freedom to use different manufacturers, different device types, and the systems they already own.
They need software that connects with Epic, Oracle Health, Meditech, nurse call, smart beds, RTLS, dietary systems, and identity platforms.
They need to replace hardware without replacing the entire platform.
HCI ONE Engine is built for that.
We are an open book.
We will explain what we support.
We will explain what we do not support.
If there is a limitation, we will tell you.
If something requires testing, we will test it.
Open architecture does not mean everything magically works with everything.
That would be called fiction.
It means the platform is designed to connect, adapt, and expand without forcing the hospital into a closed ecosystem.
Engine can manage iOS devices.
Sometimes an iPad is the right tool for a particular workflow.
But an iPad can look perfect in a demonstration because the battery is charged, the network is stable, and nobody has stolen the charging cable.
Hospitals are not demonstrations.
A hospital tablet has to remain charged, mounted, connected, secure, clean, and available through thousands of patient interactions.
It must survive operating system updates, room turnover, wireless changes, and the occasional patient who believes it should leave the hospital with them.
We support iOS.
We simply believe the hospital should choose it because it is the right device, not because it looked good during a thirty minute demonstration.
That is the difference twenty years makes.
We built Mediacare for one customer with twenty two hospitals and thousands of 43 inch HCI televisions.
Around the same time, we completed our first Cerner integration.
Along the way, we made some good decisions.
We also built some boxes.
HCI ONE Engine represents what we learned from both.
Use open architecture.
Use the intelligence already built into the room.
Manage devices centrally.
Connect with the systems the hospital already owns.
Tell the truth about what will work five years from now, even when the easier answer might win the project today.
Mediacare has been doing the work for nearly two decades.
Now it finally has a name people might remember.