Ambient listening technology is often framed as a fix for documentation fatigue and clinician burnout. But for many nursing informatics leaders, that is just the first chapter of the story. What comes next, they told Becker’s, is a quiet but profound shift in how care itself is delivered — one where ambient tools become clinical partners, predictive systems and even subtle shapers of the care environment.
Marc Benoy, BSN, RN, chief nursing information officer at Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health, described the problem bluntly: Burnout and documentation burden are symptoms, not root causes. For decades, he said, “much of nursing work still bends around technology rather than the other way around.”
Streamlining charting may offer short-term relief, but the deeper opportunity lies in redesigning how information flows through hospitals and how technology supports “the natural rhythm of care.” He envisions smart rooms at the center of that shift — spaces that listen, learn and adapt to patients and care teams.
Today, ambient systems mostly act as passive observers, recording sound, motion and activity. In the future, they could interpret those signals in real time, recognizing patterns that indicate pain, confusion, restlessness or fall risk and alerting staff before small changes escalate into safety incidents.
That predictive layer, Mr. Benoy said, could extend nurses’ reach without adding to their workload. When connected seamlessly to electronic health records, these systems could create a shared, real-time picture of each patient’s condition, cutting down on redundant charting and miscommunication.
And smart rooms might become more than safety tools. Adjusting lighting, sound and temperature in response to a patient’s tone or restlessness could help restore a sense of presence at the bedside.
“These are small but meaningful shifts, ways technology can help restore presence instead of replacing it,” he said.
Other nursing leaders see ambient technology’s greatest potential in the data it generates. At Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine, CNIO Katrina Pfeiffer, DNP, RN, said real-time ambient documentation will underpin faster clinical decision-making while fueling population health analytics, quality reporting and predictive modeling.
Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health CNIO Karen Hunter, DNP, RN, said ambient tools are beginning to reveal “the full scope of nursing care” by capturing real-time activities and interventions that rarely make it into the record. That richer view, she said, allows organizations to connect what happens at the bedside to outcomes such as productivity, care quality and patient experience.
Several leaders described ambient technology evolving from a charting assistant to a decision-making ally. Marc Perkins-Carrillo, MSN, RN, CNIO of Tampa, Fla.-based Moffitt Cancer Center, expects ambient listening to merge conversations with real-time EHR data to surface actionable insights tailored to each patient. At Tucson, Ariz.-based TMC Health, CNIO Amanda Klopp, DNP, RN, emphasized that real-time, context-aware documentation could improve data accuracy and enable predictive insights and automated care coordination. And Michelle Charles, DNP, RN, CNIO and senior vice president of virtual care at Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Parkview Health, framed the technology as “a clinical partner that enhances safety and patient-centered equitable care,” allowing nurses to spend more time with patients and render “smarter, more compassionate care.”
Some see an even more intimate role for ambient systems. Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health’s CNIO, Colleen Mallozzi, RN, suggested ambient listening could eventually treat the human voice itself as a kind of vital sign — a signal of stress, anxiety, cognitive decline or agitation. Detecting those changes in real time could prompt earlier interventions and weave clinicians’ observations into a shared narrative.
“When every care team voice is woven into a shared story in the EHR, the technology disappears,” she said. “What’s left is care that’s contextual, connected and profoundly human.”
Amid their optimism, nursing leaders were quick to note that the path forward is not purely technical. Jared Houck, RN, CNIO at Charleston, S.C.-based Roper St. Francis, described himself as “cautiously optimistic,” warning that the shift to ambient care will require significant cultural change.
“For too long, we’ve asked nurses to adapt to technology,” he said. “I think it’s time to flip the script and design technology for nurses, by nurses.” Future ambient tools, he said, should quietly capture care in real time and anticipate needs, allowing nurses to focus more fully on what only they can provide: human care.
