Smart rooms and digital whiteboards are reshaping inpatient communication, bedside workflow, and care coordination. The advances in in-room technology help give real-time information to patients, families, and clinical staff.

These tools may also reduce documentation-related distraction at the bedside for clinicians.

“Ambient documentation allows clinicians to focus attention on the patient rather than note-taking, while also increasing time available for direct interaction with patients and families,” Joanna S. Cavalier, MD, a hospitalist at Duke University Hospital and assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, said.

Dynamic Displays Improve Rounds and Discharge Planning

For hospitalists, digital whiteboards may have the greatest impact when electronic health record (EHR)-integrated displays support rounding, discharge planning, and role-specific communication without overwhelming patients.

“Displayed information should be accurate, timely, and useful for patients, families, and care team members entering the room,” Cavalier said. EHR integration is central, she added, because it allows teams to pull current data such as care team members, discharge milestones, fall risk, and diet directly from the medical record.

These functions can reduce reliance on outdated dry erase boards, improve alignment across the care team, and help hospitalists communicate discharge readiness, anticipated disposition, needed services, and daily goals more consistently.

Clinical Design Must Protect Rest, Privacy, and Equity

Hospitalists should also recognize that smart-room technology can introduce unintended consequences if design, implementation, and communication are not patient-centered.

“Two key risks with digital whiteboards are underuse and misalignment with user needs,” cautioned Cavalier. Displays may disrupt sleep, create visual stimulation for patients with delirium or dementia, or generate confusion when care plans change. “Displays can be disruptive to sleep, leading patients or families to turn them off or cover them,” she added.

To support equitable and clinically useful use, hospital medicine clinicians should consider preferred language, health literacy, visual accessibility, placement, brightness, reflectivity, staff training, and clear messaging standards.

Improving Workflow as Long as Safeguards Are Set

Smart rooms and digital whiteboards are presented as tools that can improve inpatient coordination by making the care team, daily goals, and discharge barriers visible. The most significant impact is on communication with patients, families, and nurses.

Vasthala Juvvigunta, MBBS, a hospitalist in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, said a digital whiteboard can answer questions such as “Who is my doctor?” and “What are we waiting for before I can go home?” The overall benefit is a more interactive, patient-centered rounding experience that supports shared decision-making, she said.

Such patient-facing information should be simple, relevant, and written in plain language rather than becoming a full copy of the medical record.

“The goal is not to show patients everything in the electronic health record” but to display information that helps them understand and participate in care, she said. At the same time, sensitive details and clinician-facing uncertainty should remain private, because displays may be visible to visitors, staff, or roommates.

Also, Juvvigunta told Medscape Medical News that organizations should “start with the communication problems — not the technology” and ensure EHR integration, staff training, clear ownership, accessibility, and privacy safeguards. “Technology should ‘amplify not replace’ the human connection,” she added.

Like the other experts, Joel Gordon, MD, chief medical information officer at UW Health and a family medicine and community health physician in Madison, Wisconsin, described smart rooms and digital whiteboards as tools that can reshape inpatient care by improving coordination, communication, and clinical care.

For patients and families, Gordon said smart rooms should show information that supports understanding without adding confusion.

“For patients and families, the smart room should display a clear, simplified care plan — team members, daily goals, and anticipated discharge timeline — focused on transparency and understanding without overwhelming detail,” he said. Privacy standards should be patient centric as well.

“More granular clinical data, differential diagnoses, and sensitive information should remain clinician-facing, consistent with HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] requirements to protect privacy and limit unnecessary exposure of protected health information,” Gordon outlined.

He also warned that hospitals should watch for privacy risks, duplicate documentation, inaccurate alerts, or systems falling out of sync.

No disclosures were reported.