How AI is Changing Healthcare w/Ambient Clinical’s Brian Tufts

Speaker A: All right, Dean. We discovered last week that healthcare leaders are looking for more than just tech.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And that successful pilots are not always necessarily the be all end on it.

Speaker B: This is true.

Speaker A: To prove ROI to justify these extensive rollouts, we had that healthcare conversation.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: This week we're taking a little bit of a step further. We're uncovering how AI fits into the healthcare conversation. Uh, so we've got Brian Tufts joining us from, uh, he's from the CEO of Ambient Clinical.

Speaker B: Great partner.

Speaker A: Um, we've had Tim Kubel back on the show. We have long time listeners.

Speaker B: Long time time.

Speaker A: Mike, recall Tim being on the show a while back, talking to us about all things analytics and how it's helping out the healthcare space. And we're going to dig in a little further because Ambient offers tools that are designed to help hospitals take that very proactive approach to sepsis prevention, analytics, remote monitoring, all the good stuff to just help improve their overall outcomes for their patients. Brian's going to help us unpack what the AI, uh, conversation looks like now for healthcare, what they're talking about, where it's working, what's not. Talk about the importance of quality data.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And making sense of the data. Yeah.

Speaker B: What do you do with all that data?

Speaker A: I thought that was the most important part. This conversation is the acknowledgment that there's so much data feeding into the healthcare space now, but doing something with it is an entirely different.

Speaker B: You got to move on. Right? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: And I think he has a really smart approach to how to go out and do.

Speaker B: And a great partner like that, like Ambien can help you.

Speaker A: Right, Exactly. We're talking about impacting care readmission rates, which is always a big important thing for hospitals and where the resellers can go out and find unique opportunities to help them grow their business.

Speaker B: Holy moly. There you go.

Speaker A: We got lots of good stuff.

Speaker B: We got good stuff.

Speaker A: Talk about. That's right. Episode. I'm John Martin.

Speaker B: And I'm Dean Riverman.

Speaker A: Welcome to Blue Star Nation. Podcast is brought to you by Elo. The Elo Pay M M100 provides the ultimate rugged enterprise grade mobile point of sale tablet in a slim ergonomic design.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker A: Featuring a 10.1 inch FHD scratch resistant touch display, integrated payment with PCI PTS 6.0 pin on glass.

Speaker B: Holy.

Speaker A: A flexible Android 12 OS and a Qualcomm SD 660 processor. I got all this stuff. The M100 pay merges powerful performance with the security unified architecture and extended life cycle that businesses Require. It's required.

Speaker B: It is required.

Speaker A: Extended life cycle. Yeah, I required extended life cycle as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.

Speaker A: It's good to have that. And, uh, it's a good thing this is an episode about healthcare. Help me extend my life cycle.

Speaker B: That's right. That's right.

Speaker A: I need to get, um, you're gonna hear, you're gonna hear Brian talk a little bit about, you know, how some hospitals are scoring really well these days on some of those right compliance rate. And I feel like I need to get the list of which ones and make sure that I'm going to the right one.

Speaker B: That's right. That's right.

Speaker A: All right, back to hilo. The M100 accepts payments from anywhere, includes integrated cameras, boast sufficient battery life to last a shift, and can transition from mobile to fixed with a rotating POS dock that swivels from merchant to customer facing. To learn more and view additional specifications, check the link in the show notes or contact the Bluestar ELO team. All right, our guest today is Brian Tufts. He is the CEO of Ambient Clinical. You might remember we had Tim Kuhl back. It's been a few years now, I think two or three years since he was on, uh, talking to us from Ambient. Now we got Brian. Brian, tell us a little about yourself, your background. I know you guys are deeply embedded in all things analytics and deep understanding of healthcare. So give us a little refresher on yourself and what brought you over to Ambient.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, first off, thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to tell our story and be out there. So thanks for. Thanks for having us on, I guess as a repeat guest at this point, if we can. That's right, yes, yes, super appreciate the, uh, opportunity to tell our story. And it continues to evolve and it's an exciting story. So, uh, one, let me just start with that gratitude of thank you for the opportunity. But yeah, a bit about me. So I just joined Ambient, right? So president and CEO of, um, Ambient Clinical Analytics. And I'm like six weeks in at this point, uh, right at the end of March, um, joined the company, but I was familiar with the company before that. So, uh, prior to ambient, I was 18 years at a strategic medtech. So I was at Baxter and then later Vantiv Healthcare. Uh, Vantiv spun out of Baxter. So 18 years at the combined entity called 16. Baxter to Vantiv, I suppose, and got to know Ambient Clinical analytics through conversations, relationships, partnerships with Baxter Vantiv and knew the company pretty well, knew what they were doing, uh, saw the products that they had and talked to the leadership and said, hey, I'm interested to help you come and grow and scale this. When it's the right time, let me know. Uh, they closed funding round in first quarter of this year and we had that conversation and said, okay, let's do this. So made made the jump over to. To Ambient, and I'm super excited to be here and help grow and scale the company.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: Y. I think that says a lot about Ambient as well, that they were like, hey, you know, we're looking to expand and grow. No, we know we have a place in this market. We're bringing somebody that really has a. Some embedded, you know, embedded knowledge of the industry and with the technical side of. Of healthcare. So, you know, it sounds like. It sounds like a perfect marriage there. Uh, so. All right, Brian, let's get into it here. Let's talk about, you know, you know, our big topic today is the idea of the changing, you know, face of healthcare and more importantly, how AI fits into it. As with everything, AIs got to fit into it somehow. Yeah.

Speaker B: Try to figure out one of those curious areas. Right? Like AI is supposed to be, you know, uh, just a revolutionary type of thing in healthcare. Right. You hear m stories about whatever, but

Speaker A: let's be honest, people are also maybe a little scared.

Speaker B: That's right, that's right, that's right.

Speaker A: What does that mean in a place where, you know, nuance and subtlety and getting things right is important. So. So let's start down that path. Let's talk about again. Obviously, the AI, uh, conversation is everywhere. Every industry is talking about how do we. How do we fit it in? Sometimes they're talking about how we shove it in. Maybe, you know, maybe that's not right, the right way to think about it. But what is that conversation looking like in healthcare right now? Where, again, the patient outcomes, that's the important thing. You know, we want people to be healthy, we want people to get better or not even have to show up, you know, in hospitals at all. M. You know, so what is that conversation happening right now? And what's pushing adoption of AI tools in the health care space?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, there's a whole lot to unpack there. So I will. I will probably just start by scratching the surface of that. Um, but I think. And let me get back to AI in a second because I'm going to start super basic with leveraging big data for insights and knowledge. Right. So it's kind of like, how do you do that? Right. So we have an explosion of data Both inside and outside the hospital, we have an explosion of patient data. You think back 20, 30 years ago, there wasn't that much information. Right. You go to the doctor once a year, you have your annual checkup, maybe you have your annual blood work. Right. And like there was that information that went in your file and record, which was a literal file, like manila folder type, file of information. Right. So that's obviously changed in the last 20, 30 years. Right. Where there's a whole lot of information, a whole lot of data. And then when a patient goes into the hospital, the amount of data that's created on a minute to minute, hour to hour basis is just crazy. With all the advanced diagnostics and tools and monitoring uh, that we have for patients right now, and if the escalation of care requires that patient to go to the intensive care unit, then the amount of monitors and data and information on a single patient in a single day is um, amazing. Right. So now you have this just information overload, this data overload. So how do you make sense of all that? How do you take that data and turn it into insights, turn it into actionable insights, relevant insights, uh, to improve patient care? That I think is the challenge. If m. I can throw it down in that way. How do you leverage big data to advance patient care? And I have conviction that that's inevitable, that will happen. We will better leverage big data to improve clinical care. That's going to happen. Mhm. Now how does that happen? Who leads the way? What does that look like? That I think is what we're all living through and working through and unpacking on a day to day basis. And clearly advanced tools, advanced algorithms and AI have a place in that. And I think more than anything what's changed is just a public interest in the consumption and support in that broader direction. If you want to call it the ChatGPT effect, I guess we can call it that. But you look at tools like Open Evidence, which just launched a few years ago, and I don't know if you guys are familiar with that. No, that's basically an AI tool that pulls in a lot of solid peer reviewed journals. So think like New England Journal of Medicine and they've licensed that data and stitched it all together so docs, physicians can go on and search through quickly and stay up to speed, both with things that have published in the last 20 years, but things that have published in the last two years as well. Right. So you can really stay up to speed, speed on advances in medicine quickly. So Open Evidence launches a Few years ago. And I just saw recently, in the last month or two that now it's like 2/3 of physicians in the US report using open evidence in their practice m in the last month or so. Mhm. It's like, whoa, right now that's not patient specific. Right. That's disease. That's doctor going in saying, hey, patient in front of me has the following conditions, like what I think about drug interactions or what I think about, like I'm missing this or should I think about a different diagnostic or test or something like that. But there's a hunger for it. Let me, let me say it that way. There's a hunger for this. Of like, how do we leverage big information to be more streamlined, um, and get information at our fingertips? So that driving force of physicians, clinicians, nurses and others saying, how do I leverage this wealth of information to help streamline my day and help me make better, more informed decisions faster? That's happening. Mhm. So now it's like, okay, so what does that mean and how do we do it in a thoughtful, structured, validated way, especially when it comes to patient care and saying, okay, well now let's put in data that's in the electronic medical record. Now we're talking about an actual patient, what's best for that patient, what disease is he or she battling? When is our escalation of care? When should we call for, um, additional therapies or additional diagnostics? Then things get very interesting. And of course the FDA has a say here in terms of what's a 510k clear device. You have software as a medical device and an emerging, growing category. The confluence of all of that interest from physicians, large data sets and the ability to advance patient care, that's all happening right now, right now, in 2026, in a huge way, in an exciting way. Uh, and we're happy to be at the forefront of that.

Speaker B: As I was listening to you, Brian, we often talk about on this podcast around how AI is moving from hype to reality, or hype to, in this case, getting into the clinical, getting into the copilot phase, stuff like that, augmenting maybe supporting decisions. And so everything that you kind of delineated, uh, actually right there. But my question is, you know, is the ROI now becoming more of a reality? Like are you feeling the pressure that there's gotta be, you know, so it's one thing to talk about it on the chalkboard, but now that we're moving into actual phasing and co piloting and using this data and Testing it. Are you feeling the need for more or explaining ROI faster at this point? Like is that, is that where we're at? Like uh, if it's not proving itself out to be beneficial, then we're just going to move on to something else where we could use ar. Just your thoughts there on kind of the roi, if you will.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, and it's, and look, a lot of hospitals are running on relatively thin margins.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Right. When you talk about adding costs for any kind of infrastructure play. Mhm. Then that matters. And they're going to think very seriously about that. Of like okay, well hold on, what, what are these costs? How significant are they? What is that? What does that mean for our investments in other areas? Right. And it all becomes kind of a trade off. So I think the good news is like uh, you know, for our offering is centered around software. So I can talk a lot more about kind of our partnership, our collaboration and how we work with hospitals to stitch it together. But when you're thinking about software in general, then the investment isn't huge. Right. Because we're not talking about building a new cath lab.

Speaker B: That's fair. I gotcha. Or you're not investing in uh, this robotic machinery that's going to do. Yeah. I got you the da Vinci.

Speaker C: It's not a 20, $30 million.

Speaker B: Right, right, right, right.

Speaker C: I think it becomes a bit more, a bit more achievable and say oh, okay, so we can leverage the data to advance patient care and here's how much it's going to cost. But to your question on roi, absolutely. That's a keen interest from hospital administrators and say okay, well this is great and our nurses love it and they want it, but is this going to pay for itself and how is it going to pay for itself and what does that look like? Um, so that's something that we've focused on and really found certain disease states and certain modules within our broader offering m that have that much more clear and immediate payback and say okay, well here's a way to justify the ROI very quickly and, and in the background you're setting yourself up for a broader platform that can have a whole lot of legs in a bunch of different directions. Yeah. So we, we found that to be, have a crisp, clear, both clinical value proposition and economic value proposition so hospitals can get on board a little bit faster and then from there you can build the other clinical modules and expand, but making sure that it's kind of paid for itself already.

Speaker B: Gotcha. And before we move forward, I Picked up on a phrase that you said, software as a medical device. So what does that mean to the novice outside of healthcare? But that seemed impactful. Are you saying that is it the FDA or is it the healthcare community? Is now certain software can actually be a medical device and that categorizes it differently and that has a different meaning. So just help explain what the significance of that is. Is.

Speaker C: Yeah, no, and thanks. Thanks for the. Thanks for the question. Right, so software as a medical device or samd. Right, so you've heard of sas.

Speaker B: Yes, of course. Right.

Speaker C: So this is software as a medical device samd. And the idea being that the, you know, Food and Drug Administration classifies certain, you know, FDA is going to classify certain tools, uh, as a medical device, which is the regulatory pathway is either a pre market authorization, a de nova, or most people are familiar with the 510 regulatory pathway. So having a 510 cleared device, it's regulated by the FDA and they're looking for clinical data and cybersecurity and everything else that comes along with that to say that this is, um, an FDA cleared product, um, is a regulated device. Right. And there's different rules and delineations of when something is just like, oh, well, that's just like a clinical support tool that doesn't have to go through. But if you're diagnosing and.

Speaker B: Yeah, right.

Speaker C: Identifying patients for certain disease states or therapies, uh, the FDA wants to see, um, the evidence to support that.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker C: And then software in that class is then required to go through regulatory, uh, clearance. And then is, is in fact itself a medical device, which is kind of weird.

Speaker A: It is.

Speaker B: Right, right, right.

Speaker C: If it's a surgical screw, you're like, oh, I get it, it's a surgical screw. Right. So you can feel most medical devices like, oh, it's an infusion pump, like, I get it, it's a device. Right, right. So software as a medical device is a little bit different. Right. You can't feel it. Um, but the idea that you want the data, the clinical data to support the development, you know, for the broader benefit of patient safety, of saying, hey, we want clinically validated tools in this space, um, has created the whole new category of software as medical device now.

Speaker B: Fascinating.

Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt. I appreciate that you're going down the route of the data and the analytics piece as well when it comes to AI because, you know, I like most AI conversations, inevitably at some point someone's like, oh, this is all about just replacing people and replacing jobs, minimizing the Amount of people you need.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And then I think especially then when you tie that to healthcare, people start worrying, like, wait a minute, does this mean that AI is going to start giving me diagnoses and AI is going to be my doctor and we're going to try to outsource that. And I think that's where people, people fear the idea of AI encroaching on healthcare. But I appreciate, obviously this angle is more like. No, no, no, we're not talking about that. We're not talking about taking doctors and nurses out of the picture. And that, you know, actual, you know, patient touch, point of the people. Part of what makes healthcare so important, it's about being able to, to your point, all of that data. What reminded me early on when you mentioned, like, you know, just how much stuff has changed in the last 20, 30 years or so, you know, and we cast ourselves back. I remember what, you know, going to the doctor, the hospital was like. And yeah, to your point, there wasn't a lot of data to tap into. There was, there wasn't even for the longest time, like the charting, like the personal, like the my chart stuff or whatever that, you know, that patients could have access to.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You just kind of went to your doctor, you went to a hospital wherever you, you hope that they knew what they were doing, you hope that they understood enough about you or you were able to remember what you needed to tell them about yourself. Um, so the fact that now, you know, there are so many data points that are happening every time you do go to a healthcare provider, and the idea that all those could be drawn together in order to paint this better picture of you and to help them understand how to, how to work with you or understand what's happening as patients are coming and going out of the facility, I think that is, to me, one of the cool use cases for AI that everyone should probably find, you know, a little more comforting in a way. You know, again, where, Whereas, you know, instead of, instead of being worried about that, but are they going to try to replace the doctors with a conversation about, hey, think about how many new ways and new tools that your health care team has to understand who you are and what you're dealing with, if you have some unique case that they've never come across before, they can tap into. I love the database thing, the evidence database, like, stuff like that, I think is fantastic. So, so let's, let's go a little further down that rabbit hole then of the, the data, the analytics, because this was a big part of our Topic with Tim, last time he was on again, we're talking over three years ago, you know, that, that understanding the analytics, understanding the data, understanding how to apply and learn from that stuff is so important. So looking back maybe over those last few years, how much has changed? And obviously we've, you know, we've gone through Covid, you know, we talked to Tim post Covid, but we learned a lot from that, obviously, and then layering AI on top of that. So our hospitals, do you feel like they're starting to get better with leveraging their data, turning that actually into action? And it may be like, you know, I didn't have this on the cue sheet, but I think the other question that pops in my head there is this helping us get closer to that idea of like the universal healthcare record, which I know has been like long. This dream of the healthcare world of hey, can we have a universal record where you can go to different providers and it follows you and it follows you around, it makes. And it's easily accessible. So I know that's a lot to unpack, but, you know, where are we now versus even just a few years ago?

Speaker C: Yeah. So I mean, I don't know that I have any insightful comments on the universal healthcare record in terms of when that will fully come to fruition and when we'll have control of our own data. And who knows at some point exactly how that follows us around, um, and comes to fruition. I can tell you that the interest in leveraging big data to improve clinical outcomes continues to grow. And we've seen that in just the interest in our offerings and our company in just last year, right. Watching it grow and scale and continue to, uh, to serve more hospitals, to come on board and see that growth. This was something where not that long ago you might have a conversation with the chief Information officer at a hospital and they're saying, well, I don't know, hold on, is that going to the cloud? Is that behind our firewall? Is that on our server? Is it on prem. What does that look like? What's your server? What's the data flows? How does this work? Right. That's not ancient history when there was a lot of kind of reticence and skepticism and kind of slow movement from hospitals on opportunities in this space. That's different now. I mean, hospital CIOs are being asked, how are you leveraging big data? Uh, so it's almost like how quickly that's turned around. M. And when we come in and talk about go lives and implementations with our Systems. Right away we have big quick questions. I want to do this, do you want to do that? Do you want on prem. Do you want to do. Are you hosting? Are we hosting? And it's just super, super fast and super clear. And the hospital IT groups can make decisions very quickly. And here's where we're going to go and here's why. And it's not like it was just kind of five, six years ago. Right. I mean it literally you can, you can feel the change in the air, so to speak, I guess in terms of the interest and where that's going, which I think is super exciting. Right. So now that there's a lot more interest in it going forward, then it's like how do you build it? Who do you partner with? What platforms are you building? At which point solutions are you adopting versus platforms are you adopting? How does that data flow? And there's whole companies that have been set up to basically manage the data flow that are working with pipes of data into and out of the EHR and that type of thing. Um, because it's non trivial, it does take work. Mhm. Um, to put it together to implement those and to, to do that in a repeated, systemic, reliable way. So there's definitely um, a lot of nuts and bolts behind the scenes. It's easy for us to come on a podcast and talk about, oh, we're leveraging AI and big data, but obviously there's a lot of work behind the scenes to make all of that hum. And to make it all come to life. And that's where I feel, uh, our company brings a lot of value in that we're coming in with a validated software system. And I say software, but even broader than that, working with the hospitals, like what are your goals, objectives, what are you trying to achieve? What are you trying to tackle? And let's make sure we're focused on those things and we have the right inputs and then we can leverage the technology to support you. And then importantly the workflows on the back end. Right. So let's make sure that we're solving meaningful problems in your hospital. Not adopting AI for the sake of AI. But what problems are you trying to solve? Let's work together to solve those problems and leverage technology tools to make it a bit more repeatable systemic process for everyone involved, whether that's a, uh, doctor or nurse or otherwise.

Speaker B: Uh, that's really good to hear, Brian. I mean when I think about it, you know, I was. When you talk about data and this massive amount of data, you Know back in the day you would hear about, I guess they termed it analysis paralysis. Meaning there's just so much we could do with this, we end up doing nothing.

Speaker A: Where do we start?

Speaker B: It's like, where do we start? But it sounds like you're getting more and more into conversations that are proactive, that are more meaningful around like, okay, we're going to tackle this one element over here, uh, as it may be. I mean, are you guys, do you think you're going to be more deliberate in those kinds of dialogues? And is that where our, maybe some of our technology partners should start skewing their conversation? Just be more direct around, um, avoid the analysis paralysis. What can we work on? What outcomes are you looking to change? And then hyper focusing on that. That's what I'm hearing, correct?

Speaker C: Correct. So, uh, one quick example, I guess, of that. Well, to speak to the data and the analysis paralysis. So the new tools that are coming out, right, and you have like, you know, sensors that some hospitals are like, oh, every patient that comes in gets a new sensor. It's a multi parameter model. It's throwing off um, monitoring signs every four seconds. Right. So okay, that's great. Right. That sounds a bit more real time. That sounds a bit more patient centric than coming in every four hours to check vitals and say, oh, I'm going to check your temperature and um, other vital signs on every episodic every four hour basis versus continuous real time. But you're not employing a nurse to sit there every four seconds as the data comes in. The idea that you could have tools that are running in the background and of course tools like ours love the data. They're data hogs. So the idea that you're throwing information at it every four seconds is wonderful and see if there's trending in a bad direction or once you trip over a threshold or otherwise like, oh, now I'm going to flag and have the nurse come, oh, well now this is something I want to investigate. This feels compelling. So I think that the, the fact that you're generating all this data, um, it can lead to analysis paralysis. If you're relying on a human to sit there and go through every four seconds and look through it. The idea that you have um, systems and software in addition, not instead of, but in addition to the human clinicians, I think can be a big boost for them, big benefit for them to help and especially calling out those patients that may be headed in a bad direction or patient deterioration. Right. Can be flagged, um, and help support the Humans. Along the way to your question of do you dig in on one specific area? We found that helpful. I mentioned earlier kind of the clinical and economic value proposition. One area that we do a lot of work in right now, um, and have for the last few years, but it seems to be especially popular right now, uh, is our tool in the sepsis space.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker C: And that's one that a lot of hospitals are working on. Right. As part of the value based purchasing program from cms. It's a quality measure. Right. So hospitals have to look at what, their compliance to the bundle. Right. So there's a step one bundle and they look at compliance to that protocol and that's, um, got certain different components and it's got time elements and it's kind of a complicated thing. But in general, you're saying, what's the sepsis protocol at your hospital and are you following that? What percentage of the time are you following that? 50% of the time, 75% of the time. Right. But that's now a publicly reported number and there's actually financial measures from CMS as part of the VBP program tied to it. So that's an example where you can come in and have a conversation with a hospital. What are your objectives and what are you trying to achieve?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: What's your sepsis program and process overall today? How are you flagging and identifying patients? How are you putting them in the protocol? And then how are you assuring, uh, adherence to protocol once those patients are in the protocol and having that broader conversation of, uh, let's partner with you and work through this in a broader way. Yes. There's technology and software at the center of it, but so much of it is in the configuration and workflow. Uh, we want to make sure that antibiotics within this amount of time are fluids within this amount of time, and we can talk to them and say, do you want that to ping the doctor? Do you want that to ping the nurse? Right. Do you want that to ping an hour before or 30 minutes before, or both? Do you want, you know, what communications do you use in your hospital? You want us to ping the nurse call or otherwise? Right. So when you go through that full configuration, um, we can make hospital systems and processes come to life in a repeatable, systematic way. And that's what ends up being really powerful. Yes, the technology helps, yes, the software helps. Yes. The detection algorithms all play a valuable role. But that end to end kind of process improvement and making it systematic, that's the magic sauce, no doubt.

Speaker A: Uh, so let's go a little further down the sepsis piece there, because this is how I learned about Ambient and, and at what you do. A few years back, we're talking about four years ago, um, we worked with Zebra and did a marketing campaign for Ambient where we were kind of putting out some ebook information and driving some attention and interest in your platform. And I remember putting that ebook together. I wrote both side ebook. I remember putting it together and getting some stats from some folks and finding out that at the time. And again, this is about four years ago, the sepsis bundle compliance that was considered passable for hospitals in the US was 50 to 60%. So it means, like, as long as you're getting it right, about half the time, maybe a little more than half that was considered as passable. But in reality, a lot of hospitals fell well below that, like, uh, as low as 9 to 25%.

Speaker B: And we're talking sepsis detection.

Speaker A: Right, Right. Just being able to detect, to be compliant to the tools that needed to be there to actually detect it in any amount of reasonable time to. And I know that obviously is a huge issue in hospitals. Sepsis is one of the worst things that can possibly happen to a patient. And, you know, it can lead to so many more issues down the road. And that misdiagnosis, the readmissions that can come out of that, all that stuff is terrible for hospitals. That's terrible for their scores, you know, and it's just, you know, it's. It's not good for them from a business perspective, let alone what it's obviously doing to the patients themselves. Right, so. So let's talk about that, the sepsis stuff, the reactive care, all the ways that leveraging the data can help us potentially get out in front of things before they happen. And all those numbers were pretty bad back then. How are they looking now? Are things starting to improve? And I guess maybe more to the point, what's helping the hospitals that are actually managing to improve that versus not? I mean, I'm sure bringing you on board can be a big leap there.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: What's actually happening right now around those particular use cases?

Speaker C: Well, I don't know. I got good news and bad news for you. So the good news is the numbers have gotten slightly better. So the national adherence to sepsis protocol currently sits about 63%. Okay, right, 63% range. So that's slightly better than the 52 or whatever. Right. So that's pointed in the right direction. I would argue that 62 is still not a great number. Uh, to be anchored on of have we achieved where we want to be, uh, that there's still significant room for improvement. And you ask, like, how. How are people moving the needle? How is it getting better? I think it's getting better through. Through focus. Right? And you have more focus on it and saying, hey, here's where we're going to go. And I give, I give CMS credit for saying, we want you to publicly report this number and we're going to tie dollars to it. And like, this is, this is a thing, um, I've even heard from ED docs that, you know, an ED physician that says, hey, like, my bonus is paid in part, um, you know, based on our sepsis compliance numbers. So it's like, okay, so they're trying to make this come to life in a real way, but then the question is, how do you actually get there? And I think the hospitals that are having success are putting dedicated resources at it. Right? So you have a lot of sepsis coordinators in large hospitals and hospital systems. That's their job, is to be the sepsis coordinator and figure out, um, how to solve the complex puzzle and the care coordination and everything else that goes along with it. And then other hospitals adopting processes and technologies like ours to try to be at the center of that and say, okay, well, how are we going to make this sepsis program overall? And how are we going to kind of create this end to end care? And then if there's some tools, like I said, that help to make that a bit more systematic, I think that pays large dividends. And we've seen the improvement. We've worked with hospitals that weren't great and brought them up to the national average. We worked with hospitals that were already doing very well, and we've taken them to rates that are super exciting. So I don't want to sit here and just start, quote, and I'm certainly not going to quote hospital names, um, but we target getting, um, all of our hospitals over 80%. That's, that's our goal, um, after going live, that we can work with them on a few months and, you know, figure things out, uh, make sure we work with them. And we have a lot of hospitals that are over that. Um, we have a partner hospital that's over 90% compliance at this point. Right. So it is achievable if you really focus on it, work on it, and then come up with systems and processes that are built around it. It's. You can do it, but it takes work and, you know, a little bit of Time and effort and focus on it.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we always talk about the need for technology implementation, VARs or SIS solution integrators to have a good basket of partners that you can work with. And I think this really highlights that because, you know, if you're in the healthcare environment, you know, sepsis is one of those things that it's, it's, it's, it should be talked about. Right. Or it's a, it's a conversation starter and you gotta have a partner like an ambient on your side so that you can have a meaningful conversation and then, yes, bridge that into a solution, uh, that is gonna be viable. I mean, unfortunately, I think sepsis is a little bit in the news right now. Right. Because of Kyle Busch and I believe that was, that's how he, uh, passed because of sepsis. Uh, so you think about that. It's like, oh my gosh, you know, there's the tools are out there. Why is this still keep happening? Uh, type of a thing. But anyway, you can have the conversation right around that. And I think again, I'll just reiterate, having a great partner, like an ambient and you're uh, on your side, enables you to have those conversations and be a little bit of a, you know, continue to be that solution provider that you need to be.

Speaker A: Yep, absolutely agree. So, so then maybe, Brian, the other piece there too is the remote monitoring and patient monitoring. And you mentioned, you know, you mentioned the little tags that people might be wearing and like, you know, taking sensor readings. But I also know that like, there's a bigger push to do patient monitoring outside of um, the facility. Like, how can we keep up with what's happening with them when they're not actually in the healthcare environment? Because let's be honest, you know, a lot of things can go wrong when you're not there. Uh, unfortunately, by the time you get there, it's usually because a lot of things have gone wrong. But what if we could maybe stave some of that off ahead of time by monitoring M remotely? So where are you playing into that right now? Um, is that starting to help maybe take some of the burden off the hospitals and the providers in house knowing that they can monitor things and maybe get out in front of something before a patient is so bad that they need to show up at the hospital and you know, and you know, how are you helping with that conversation? Or you know, what, what are you telling resellers and integrators that they should be asking and talking about in order to make sure that the remote monitoring piece is just as important as what's actually happening when they're in the hospital?

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. It's a huge opportunity now from, from a avoidance of a hospital event overall. Right. And you think about trying to do kind of like population health type monitoring. That's a big challenge. And that's an area where we, we don't meaningfully play in that right now really. You know, once they're, once they're in the hospital. But um, but to, to answer your question there, I think once they're in the hospital, when you look at getting out of the hospital at discharge, right, like, okay, so where are you discharging home? Are you discharging to a skilled nursing facility or long term care facility? And then what does the tech stack look like at those facilities and how does that integrate back in, in terms of what that looks like? And that's where we have some meaningful partnerships with companies that like, you know, have the, have the patches and have the um, diagnostic tools where we can then potentially play outside of the hospital. And we're working to develop uh, and tailor our tools in that space as well. So that's an area of focus and interest for us right now is kind of the post discharge care trying to prevent the initial, like to stop from the initial hospitalization at a population health level. That is a huge challenge. So I think we're going to leave, leave that to maybe some other partners in the space. But the idea of how does the care in the hospital potentially impact uh, 30 day readmissions, uh, where are you discharging to? How are you keeping an eye on those patients post discharge and are you collaborating with an LTCH or SNF or others? Uh, in terms of that care coordination? There's opportunities where we're looking to have uh, meaningful solutions and partner with hospitals and hospital systems on that.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Uh, all right, well we're going to have Brian tell us a little bit more in a moment about how ambient can help you go out and maybe you know, develop some of your relationships with hospitals a little better. Maybe find some new opportunities, maybe win some new opportunities. Before um, we do that though, quick note of what's happening around Blue Star Nation. Look, everything digital Signage and Pro AV is at Infocom 2026 in Las Vegas.

Speaker B: Uhuh.

Speaker A: Why is everything in Vegas?

Speaker B: I don't know. I'm not a huge fan of Vegas to be honest with you.

Speaker A: You know, I've had my wife and I, we went back there for our 10 year anniversary and back to the scene of the cry where we got married and decided we were probably done with Vegas for a little while. I think we've gotten our fill of it for, for some time but it seems like everybody likes to have shows up there anyway. That said you should still go because we're going to be there too. Uh, so Infocom is the world's uh, most vital pro AV show. It's bringing together industry titans, innovators that are shaping the future of technology like digital signage, like you know, audio, visual, uh, technologies. Now again we'll be there. We're co sponsored there with custom uh, America, Elo, LG, MicroTouch and Samsung. We're gonna be showing off the latest solutions, we're gonna be exploring ourselves, what's new and what's next. So if you're gonna be there, we invite you to stump, come by and see us. This uh, the show takes place June, June 17th through the 19th. At least the exhibitor portion.

Speaker B: There you go. Absolutely. It's a long show and if you

Speaker A: are planning to attend but you don't necessarily have a pass yet, guess what? You can get a free exhibit hall pass on uh, us. Hey, you just got to use code blu336 when you register. I'll put all this stuff in the show notes.

Speaker B: There you go.

Speaker A: Stuff where you can get that information.

Speaker B: Free ticket?

Speaker A: Yes, free ticket to the exhibit hall. Find us there at booth uh C5019. Hopefully that doesn't mean there's 5,000 booths because might take. You might want to map that one out ahead of time. Come see us first before you get exhausted.

Speaker B: It's like hymns.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Uh, check out the show notes for more details and where to register while you're doing that or maybe before you head out that way, take a quick moment as always to like and subscribe to our show. If you're watching on YouTube, hit that like button. Make sure you're subscribed to our channel so you always know when new episodes go live. Not just this, but all the other great stuff like ISVs on tap, everything we're putting out there on YouTube. YouTube, leave us some comments we'd love to hear from you. We want to hear what you think about this conversation. Tell us the ideas of other stuff you want us to talk about on the show, guests you'd like us to bring on topics you'd like us to dig into. Uh, and as always check out our Blue Star Nation blog where we do some amazing content around what's happening in the channel. Learn about what's happening with your customers from your customers and what they're looking for in technology. And of course, always send your ideas out into is. You can always find us on the Bluestar LinkedIn page, or you can email us directly at anytime nation@bluestaring.com. all right, let's wrap things up, as always, with a little var value to kick things off here. And Brian, you know, again, I think, I think the service that Ambient has here is phenomenal. I think, you know, what you are offering to do and what you're trying to do in the hospital space is definitely a next level that I think a lot of resellers probably don't think the, uh, too hard about, you know, or, or dive into very.

Speaker B: But I would argue need to be.

Speaker A: Yes, they very much should be, and they should be partnering up with someone like you to help them do that. So how do you go out and help a reseller or an integrator find new opportunities in healthcare, have conversations and, you know, maybe speak a little bit too, to, you know, what is the difference between a conversation with, you know, healthcare versus potentially some of the other, you know, industries that our resellers are typically involved? And I, I would imagine most of the folks in the healthcare space understand healthcare, but I also know there's a lot of resellers that are like, man, I love a piece of healthcare, but I have no idea how to get my foot in that door. So how can you help them go out there and start some really good conversations?

Speaker C: Well, I think, I think there's. I think there's two ways, right? Um, I'll hit on. I'll hit on two important points here, and the one that we've, we've spoke about through, through a lot of our conversation today is, is leveraging the broader AI conversation of hospitals are looking to leverage big data to improve clinical care. Right? You're hitting a receptive audience with a message of like, hey, yeah, we want to do that. We're interested in doing that, but how do we do that in a. In a compliant, regulated, thoughtful way? Right? They don't want to. They don't want to adopt some AI tool that three of us came up with over the weekend in our garage. It's like, hey, we trained it up on a bottle.

Speaker A: We did a little good.

Speaker C: Let's roll. Yeah, right? It's not, it's not that at all. Right? We're trying to empower clinicians. Right? And we also. You guys mentioned this earlier, and thank you for saying it. Right. This isn't about replacing a doc or a nurse or anything else like that. Right. This is about empowering them with the best information at the right time to improve patient care. Right. So I would say what's it, what's the interest, uh, from var the fact that there's this AI big Data swell right now and a lot of interest in it and quite frank, a lot of money pouring into it to say how are you going to meaningfully play in that space? And there's lots of folks that are trying to potentially have a voice in that room, but not all of them are ready with solutions that have already been installed, already been implemented, already shown to work across various different EHR vendors, everything else like that. So we're in a, uh, very nice position of ready to grow and scale with tools that we can implement rapidly for hospital and hospital systems and help meet their needs. So I think that's kind of step one of leveraging that uh, interest in AI and big data. And I think the second piece of it, and I mentioned this briefly earlier, is the workflow element. Right. That we're not just selling a software point solution of oh, come in and adopt our software and it's going to help you do magical things. It's the conversation about how are we going to configure it to the needs of your hospital and how do you define sepsis and how do we want our alerts to fire and pop in your systems and how do you want the doc or nurse to confirm it or snooze it or work through this and then once it is confirmed, how do you want to integrate into that workflow and what is that going to look like from the various systems and processes there now that could come to life on the tablets they carry around on the communication tools around their neck.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker C: So many other different ways that once you start meaningfully interacting with hospitals on their clinical workflow and talking about again, I'll lean on sepsis, but this can also be broader in the ICU and other disease states. But you think about like sepsis management program broadly.

Speaker B: Hm.

Speaker C: That's going to touch a lot more than just a software technology we're putting together that's going to have broader workflow, uh, implications M and then understanding how that system and process comes to life overall, the hospital may have other needs in that space too and say, oh well yeah, we have this old communication system that doesn't work that way. We're thinking about upgrading anyway. Mhm. Or oh, we have these other tablets or Visualization and stuff that hasn't worked well for years and we were thinking about making a change. So I think once you get into the conversations related to patient care, related to systems and processes related to clinical workflows, that can open up a much broader, deeper, richer conversation with the hospital overall.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Around technology that they're probably, uh, implementing along the way. I couldn't agree more, Brian. I think that's really, really well said. Again, I'll just reiterate, when you have a partner, like an ambient at your disposal that you're bringing into it, uh, you can have those more meaningful conversations around that because they have existing tool sets like real time patient surveillance and stuff like that, or the sepsis, uh, detection that we've been talking about, but also just being able to have those conversations and a meaningful discussion around workflow and better enablement of that, uh, it's a win, win situation when you walk in like, like that.

Speaker A: Yeah. So last week, you know, on the show, and Brian, as we're talking to you, it's an episode's actually coming out tomorrow as we're speaking to you. So you didn't know about this ahead of time, but we actually had a healthcare conversation then too with uh, Will Mobley from, uh.

Speaker B: Oh, Honeywell. Yeah.

Speaker A: And we were talking through some data from uh, a survey that we recently conducted, you know, with end users about, you know, what's happening in healthcare space. And you know, a big part of that overwhelming data was that there was this issue where, you know, a hardware vendor, supplier, you know, you know, a bar was going out and selling them on some devices, selling them on a pilot, they would try something out. But that the rollout and the expansion, the scaling just wasn't happening. It was getting stalled. And one of the big parts and the reasons behind that was that we just weren't demonstrating the roi, we weren't helping them with those next steps. We weren't focused on security, we weren't focused on improving workflows, helping them get people trained.

Speaker B: So yeah, uh, it was the training part. Right, right.

Speaker A: Yeah. All of that combined with everything you've been telling us today just keeps telling me that, you know, healthcare is a, it's a very relationship driven cell, very relationship driven industry where not a knowledge based, you know, where it's important that you understand who they are, what they're dealing with, what their problems are, where their challenges lie. And I think again, if, you know, ideally, if you're playing this world, you should have a lot of that already built into your business. Anyway, but it makes it, I think, even more special when you can bring in a partner like an ambulance champion and have them come in with you and have those conversations about things that are meaningful and important to them.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Their, their practices and what they're trying to accomplish. Again, it's just going to continue driving the idea that you are a strategic partner.

Speaker C: That's right.

Speaker A: That you truly understand them and their business and you're ready to help them, help them grow. It's just going to make you look like so much more than just a person that's trying to sell.

Speaker B: Oh, you're a true partner. That's right. Yep.

Speaker A: So, so, yes. You know, find these, these partners to bring with you. Uh, I will put, you know, Ambien's website in our, in our show notes, but don't hesitate to reach out to us if you want an introduction to them.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And you, if you're looking for a partner like that, we're happy to make those intros and bring them in so you can, you can look that much better.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Your healthcare partners and win some deals. We're trying to save some lives here.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: You can make a little money along the way. We'll help you do that. All right, let's wrap up, as always, with what's on our radar. It's a fun part of the show. We get to talk about anything in the world of tech, innovation, science, business, the news, entertainment, just whatever's on our mind right now we feel like chatting about. So, Brian, let's kick us off here. What's on your radar right now?

Speaker C: What's, uh, on my radar? I. I'm interested in, you know, we talked briefly about population health earlier. I'm interested about the wearable space and where that's going. Right. So you had Aura, um, that just announced their IPO at like, 11, 12 billion dollars. Wow. You have, uh, you have whoop. Um, if you're familiar with that.

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: What's whoop?

Speaker C: I'm a whoop guy. So I got, um, they raised, you know, their Series G last year or whatever, um, at similar 10, $11 billion valuation. So you have these companies that are looking at your heart rate variability, looking at how you sleep, looking at your stress and strain and, and how much time you spend outside and all these different factors, uh, for people's health over time. I think there's interest in it. You look at how many users they have, how many rings that Aura has sold and how many bands that Whoop has sold, and people that are really interested in trying to live longer, healthier lives and willing to put their own dollars for tech enabled solutions to help make that happen. I don't know where that goes.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: I don't, I don't know what this looks like over time. And we mentioned, you know, your, your own kind of personal uh, health record over time and now you think about having daily information that could potentially doesn't feed into it today, but there's no reason it couldn't in the future to, to start having that level of information. And I don't know which companies win and lose. And obviously Aura and Whoop have won in the short term. Right. With 10 billion plus valuations. I don't know how that integrates in to an Apple to uh, ah, Amazon, to a uh, healthcare system too. Right. So that's what I want. And there's no shortage of money pouring in. Right. So you have investment going into it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You have a whole lot of data generation on a whole lot of people. Mhm. And I don't know exactly where it's going to go. And I'm sure there's a lot of smart people that are looking at various different endgames of where it kind of all ends up. But uh, I'm super curious to see uh, where Aura goes, where whoop goes, where this kind of personal health sleep journey goes for so many millions of people, uh, how it all comes together. So that, that's my, that's my curiosity and I suppose I have more questions than answers there.

Speaker A: I like good stuff though. You know it's funny because I do feel like, you know, a lot of people are trying to lean into the, the healthcare wearable space. Like I just saw an Apple watch commercial that's been playing for maybe about a month or two now where it's like a woman's like out on the street or whatever and like there's a whole bunch of people shouting at her like unsolicited healthcare advice.

Speaker B: Oh, okay, I see.

Speaker A: And I think, I think the tagline is something like that don't listen to everybody, listen to your body. And basically the stuff that I watch is telling you what's actually happening with you. So yeah, I mean that's, it's, that's and it's, it is kind of a little bit of. I've uh, noticed that's been a big rebrand of like the, the Apple watch and a lot of the smart watches over the last few years. Like it's not just the, the cool watch that you're wearing back into now it seems like, like the healthcare aspect is becoming more and more prevalent on those devices as they've gone through iterations. So it is. Right. It's clearly something people care about and want. And I like it. I mean, I admit I, I pay more attention to a lot of like, like healthcare stats and data about myself that I ever used to after, you know, starting to wear a watch and you know, and having apps and stuff to track that kind of stuff. So maybe that is the pathway to get us to that remote monitoring that, you know, that we, we know is, is vital and useful and helpful. But it's just a matter of like, you know, where to collect that data. And to your point, do we have too are. Ah, we ended up with too many disparate systems that don't end up talking to each other. And you know, at some point, yeah, I think someone's going to come out on top. There's going to be some mergers, there's to be going to be some acquisitions and eventually we get to some.

Speaker B: Or is it an opportunity for more boutique doctoring? You know, coming back are the days. Maybe a house call. A doctor making a house call is not really, uh, but maybe a boutique where, you know, you have these wearables and now you tie it into an entity that's uh, you know, catering to your body and what your system needs.

Speaker A: Okay, here's, here's my pitch. Here's what I'm waiting for. You know, we always make these jokes, jokes about all these startup software companies that like to take all the vowels.

Speaker B: They take the vowels out.

Speaker A: Yes, I can see it. There's gonna be some kind of app or some kind of healthcare related app company. They're called House Call, but it's like H S CLL or something like that, right? Like just some shortened version of that. So.

Speaker B: Oh man, you never know.

Speaker A: I like it. All right, Dean, what's on your radar?

Speaker B: Did you see this? The Harvard, uh, university faculty voted a few days ago to restrict the number of A's an undergraduate professor can award a student. Did you see this?

Speaker A: This is right up there with like corporate America saying you can't give somebody like a high level evaluation or something like that. Well, yes.

Speaker B: Okay. So I don't know, I don't know what to make of this. But you know, the new policy is going to go into effect next year where it caps the number of A's in a particular course at 20%, uh, with the flexibility to award an additional four A's if you want impacted. Now what Are they citing?

Speaker A: Make me so angry.

Speaker B: They're citing, though. Well, yeah, but here's the data. So Harvard. Right. This is like, it's supposed to be

Speaker A: the best of the best.

Speaker B: Exactly. So Harvard has grown from having 25% of grades from the year 25. 22,005. I'm sorry. To 2006. Only 25% of grades were A's back then. It is now 60%. So you've seen in 20 years, you've seen whatever, uh, more than 2x growth in the amount of A's that are giving out now. They're citing a couple things that are influencing that AI. Okay, so expediting. Have you ever heard of the concept of grade inflation? In the sense that now they can document where. When AI and ChatGPT came out. You see now just across the board, uh, more. More A's than ever before. Not just in Harvard, but everywhere.

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker B: So. And they're attributing that to the fact that AI is now making it easier for students to get A's. And so Harvard is using it. Well, they're combating grade inflation by capping grades. They're also, um, moving to, um, uh, a thing where, you know, the courses or the, um. Now it's percentage rather than gpa. So it's percent of where you are in the overall UM class rather than GPA that matters the most. Now, the decision is obviously unpopular with students as you're reacting to it. Uh, we're concerned about someone who worked

Speaker A: very hard to get A's. It was very upset when I didn't.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then this would bug me.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. They're concerned with the new approach will reduce collaboration between students. Okay. I don't know. Uh, maybe. But they are in. Of course. They threw this one on the table impacting their mental health, so. Oh, you're not giving me A. My A's is gonna have. So I don't know what to make of this, you know, but our colleges should be right. The best.

Speaker C: The.

Speaker B: The breeding ground of that. And I did read a. Another article around, um, learning requires. I love this phrase. Learning requires productivity, struggle. So, you know, like, it is a struggle to get an A. Like you have to work at it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It shouldn't be.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It should go crying to mommy that, you know, I didn't get my. There should be meaning. Right. I don't know. So I just thought it was a whole fascinating article on A's and stuff like that. I know. Brian, are we handing out too many A's? Do you Feel like out there. Is it Harvard students whining a bit too much here? What we got going on?

Speaker C: I don't know. I think it's an old topic. I mean, it has been talked about for decades. Right. Of how to. How to do that. The stats you, uh, highlight are interesting. It's so tough. And if you think about a competitive place like Harvard, I mean, get in there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You gotta be the best of the best. The best of the best just to get there.

Speaker C: And if they're working really hard and doing the great work, and if you. I don't know, if you set up the schema at the beginning and say, here's a syllabus for the quarter and here's everything we want you to learn this quarter. And if a student goes and crushes that at a super high level and goes and crushes the final and demonstrates mastery of everything you wanted that student to learn in that class in that semester, the guy sitting two seats over

Speaker A: did it just slightly better.

Speaker C: So I'm gonna give you a beer.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, that's fair. That's fair. That's totally fair.

Speaker C: Like, I don't know if you already earn it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Increasing standards maybe. I don't know, make the work harder so that these are harder to achieve.

Speaker A: I agree. The other part of this equation, though, is, you know, I have learned after I, you know, again, I was someone who was very committed to getting the A's and cared a lot about that stuff. But I've also learned in my adult age how much. How much that doesn't actually matter. Like, how much. No one gives a crap how many A's I had. No one cares what my GPA was. Uh, like, no one was. Actually. No one really cares about that stuff. It's more like, hey, can you just do the job I'm asking you to do? Yeah.

Speaker B: For the rest of the world, but

Speaker A: it didn't really matter. Your straight A's don't matter if you ain't getting the job done that you. That you applied for or whatever. So. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's a little. A little bit a. A little bit of C, you know? You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we're all stuck in the middle of the bees. But I don't know. It's gonna be an interesting topic. I'll be curious if that trickles down.

Speaker B: We'll see.

Speaker A: It's one thing for Harvard to do

Speaker B: it right, but there are other people.

Speaker A: Your local community college is trying to set those standards, too. Like, I'M curious what people might think about that. Oh, man.

Speaker B: Man, we'll have to see. So what's on your radar is are you not handing out a's?

Speaker A: Not handed out A's. Um, all right, let's get our giggles out of the way. Mysterious rings around Uranus. Okay. Point to hidden moons orbiting the ice giant that is the. The line here. Yes. I'm going to say the word Uranus a few times throughout this conversation.

Speaker B: You could be at the Improv right now.

Speaker A: Paul's Rip the podcast. Get it out of your system right now. If you're someone that needs the. To giggle at this stuff.

Speaker B: All right, go for it.

Speaker A: All right, so basically, you know, as we're constantly looking at what's happening out there in the cosmos and trying to figure out, you know.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: New interesting things about the universe around us. Uh, so the, the planet Uranus has typically, first of all, most people, a lot of people don't really know this, that Uranus actually has rings.

Speaker B: Did not know that.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's typically something we ascribe with Saturn.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Right. You're in the know. You really, you know that Jupiter does too.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: But, uh, that is also a planet that does not. Does have, um, a layer of outer rings, although they tend to be much lighter and not as. And obviously it's a farther off planet, so not harder to see. It's visible and easy to see, but no thinking. So right now we have 29 known moons around the planet.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker A: Uh, and they're all named. I did not know this. After literary characters from Shakespeare and Alexander.

Speaker B: Did not know that either.

Speaker A: Did not actually know that. Okay. Uh, so these rings were discovered back in 1977. Shout out to my birth year.

Speaker B: There you go.

Speaker A: Voyager 2 caught some pics of them in 1986. That's how we got a little more close up.

Speaker B: Oh, is the web helping us here and learn.

Speaker A: But yes, now, because of the James W. Webb telescope and some of the other new technologies we have, we're able to get a little closer, more visible insights what's happening there. And now they're starting to think they're seeing these little small moons, what they call like moonlets.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: That might be part of what's creating the rings. Like particulate coming from them might be what's actually creating those rings. So there might be more boons than we're aware of. Um, basically, they're not. They don't think that. You know, again, a lot of studies here. This article goes very in depth. This is from space.com of, you know, all the light refractory stuff they're paying attention to and spotting this stuff. But basically, you know, a lot of it's still theoretical. And they're not sure they're gonna be able to really, until they can get another spacecraft out there to actually, you know, spend some time looking around, sniffing around. They're not sure if they're gonna be able to confirm or deny that, but the expectation is that maybe there's, there's a few more movies out there and then.

Speaker B: Sounds like they could use some AI to figure out what this.

Speaker A: I, I'm. I'm sure there probably is some AI at play.

Speaker C: I'm sure there is.

Speaker A: I would think at this point they're probably leaning into, into the, the AI aspect of it. So there you go. Got some, some more rings around Uranus. Giggle, giggle, giggle, giggle.

Speaker B: I like it.

Speaker C: I like it.

Speaker B: We haven't had a Uranus joke in a long time.

Speaker A: Exactly. All right. That is what's on our radar. Brian Tuft's Ambient Clinical. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker B: Thank you, Brian.

Speaker A: Appreciate having you on the pod again. If you're interested in partnering up with Ambient, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We can get you connected. Uh, it is time for us to sign off. So until next time, you know, um, you know, check your heart rate. Go see the doctor. Have you been to your. Have you been to your annual physical? Go check them out. You don't want to end up in the hospital. Like, as, as much as Ambient has a great product.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: You would rather not be the person that product needs to be used on. And we'll see you folks out there in the nation.