Regional One Health’s Center for Innovation is working with Amazon Web Services to explore how to improve the Code Blue process at the hospital.
During a Code Blue, a rapid response team delivers resuscitation when someone on campus experiences a medical emergency such as cardiac or respiratory arrest.
By improving documentation and feedback using artificial intelligence, leaders hope to improve the delivery of lifesaving care.
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve and grow, it can play a role in improving how health care is delivered.
At Regional One Health, leaders are working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to explore that concept as it relates to the Emergency Resuscitation (Code Blue) efforts that occur if someone on campus experiences a medical emergency such as cardiac or respiratory arrest.
Alejandra Alvarez, Chief Innovation Officer at Regional One Health, said the Center for Innovation is leveraging its relationship with AWS to collaborate on an initiative that would digitize documentation and feedback both during and after a Code Blue. The goal is to improve the delivery of lifesaving first aid care whenever a Code Blue occurs.
“We’re always looking for new opportunities to build on our collaboration with AWS, because it’s a great way to innovate faster,” Alvarez said.
Chief Innovation Officer Alejandra Alvarez is working with Amazon Web Services to improve Regional One Health’s Code Blue process. “What we have works – but can it be better? That’s the opportunity here,” she said.
The Center for Innovation has been actively working on ways to positively impact the Code Blue documentation process. With AWS, they were able to identify a collaboration opportunity that would allow them to move faster to achieve their goals.
During a Code Blue, a specialized rapid response team including doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists is dispatched to provide immediate resuscitation efforts including CPR, intubation, and defibrillation. By intervening as quickly as possible, they can give a victim of cardiac or respiratory arrest a better chance of survival and recovery.
That process has always been documented on paper. In 2023, the Center for Innovation piloted an app that digitized the process. In 2025, they added AI capabilities to their plan, and that has now been made possible thanks to the collaboration with AWS.
“By digitizing the process, documentation would be easier and more accessible. There would be fewer documentation errors, and we could pull data more easily,” Alvarez said. “Digitizing a paper-based process was our first goal, but we quickly realized that the evolution of AI and how fast things are changing meant that there is a possibility to do even more.”
They shifted the concept to include a reasoning model that can guide and support the Code Blue team in real time and after an incident.
“The idea is to develop a reasoning model that can hear what’s happening and is ready to provide recommendations in the moment that you need it,” Alvarez explained. “It’s comparing what it’s listening to and documenting against protocol.”
That allows feedback to flow a lot faster, Alvarez said: with the paper process, someone needs to extract data and assess patterns manually, which is done on a monthly or quarterly basis. Code Blue teams may not get feedback for months, whereas the digitized process would give immediate input.
A Code Blue occurs when someone on campus has a medical emergency such as cardiac or respiratory arrest. A specialized rapid response team including doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists is dispatched to provide immediate resuscitation efforts including CPR, intubation, and defibrillation.
The feedback is also completely objective and not prone to misinterpretation.
The roadmap for the project includes creating a score using real-time data capture that would tell a team how it did during a Code Blue and provide an event summary and insights. “We would be able to use the score to create action plans: ‘This is how we did, and this is what we need to improve,’” Alvarez said. “Having an unbiased assessment of how you’re doing is powerful – it can show us things we aren’t seeing and lead to new, improved care models and ways of executing or responding to Code Blue events.”
“The idea is to transform an area that hasn’t been innovated in a long time. What we have works – but can it be better? That’s the opportunity here,” she said.
While this project will specifically target Code Blue performance, Alvarez said there is also value to be found simply in the process of working with AWS.
For one, it has been an excellent learning experience in being nimble when developing a concept and project proposal.
The opportunity to present at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society 2026 Global Healthcare Conference provided additional motivation to be agile and hyper-focused in developing the project.
“It created a sense of urgency for us and the AWS folks to build a proof of concept with tangible results. That became our motivation,” Alvarez said.
The roadmap for the project includes creating a score using real-time data capture that would tell a team how it did during a Code Blue and provide an event summary and insights.
“We brought together a team including Intensive Care Unit nurses, Critical Care Unit nurses, and research nurses to contribute, and we were able to develop a proof of concept in 30 days including a potential roadmap to assess the value proposition.”
Their session at the conference was packed. Now, they’re assessing their resource needs for the completion of the roadmap by Regional One Health.
“This experience is a testament that you can build and test quickly, and that’s exciting for us because speed to market is important,” Alvarez said.
“Working with AWS can help us get to our end goal significantly faster. They’re a great collaborator and a great resource. We’re excited to be able to fulfill the roadmap that we’ve put together for the Code Blue project and to continue the collaboration.”