Apella vs Artisight (2026)
Apella and Artisight both put sensing hardware in the operating room and turn what it sees into timestamps, milestone alerts and case length forecasts that flow into Epic, so perioperative leaders shortlist them for the same job. The difference is scope. Apella is an operating room product. Four fixed cameras per room feed its own detection models, which timestamp up to 14 events in real time, and its modules forecast case duration, flag delays, manage block time and report on turnovers. It publishes detection accuracy from a peer reviewed paper and a Houston Methodist study of added case volume. Artisight sells one device and one platform for the whole hospital. In the operating room it records milestones, captures timeouts and debriefs, alerts pre op, PACU and environmental services, predicts case length and drafts operative notes into Epic; on inpatient units the same device runs virtual nursing, virtual observation, fall alerts and ambient documentation. Processing runs on edge hardware inside the hospital, and one annual subscription covers devices, updates and support. Apella suits a perioperative team that wants a dedicated capacity tool with published accuracy; Artisight suits a health system that wants one platform across patient rooms and operating rooms.
- Detection accuracy published in a peer reviewed paper, with F1 of 0.98 to 0.99 across five events at one health system.
- Capacity tools for block utilization, open time and case duration forecasts built for perioperative leaders.
- A 7 percent rise in monthly case volume in a Houston Methodist cardiothoracic suite, reported in the Journal of Imaging.
- Video kept no longer than 28 days and used for model training and quality assurance, with retention and access spelled out in its help center.
- One device and platform across operating rooms and patient rooms, adding virtual nursing, virtual observation and fall alerts on inpatient units.
- Operative notes drafted from ambient voice and event detection and sent into Epic, with timeouts and debriefs captured automatically.
- Processing on edge hardware inside the hospital firewall, with cloud components only at the hospital's request and no video or audio stored from surgery.
- Devices, updates and support bundled into a single yearly fee, with new hardware every two years.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Apella and Artisight are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Apella | Artisight |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Hospital & Unit Operations | Inpatient Deterioration & Risk Monitoring |
| Founded | 2019 | 2015 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | Chicago, Illinois |
| Website | apella.io | artisight.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph states what the AI Health Index verified about the vendor, with the caveats attached.
Apella is a perioperative product only: cameras in each operating room feed models that detect up to 14 events, and Pulse, Horizon and Insight turn the timestamps into live status, delay predictions, block utilization and retrospective audits. A mobile app gives surgeons and anesthesiologists their own case tracker.
Source: AI Health Index, October 2026
Artisight installs one device per room, with dual 4K cameras, a microphone array, radar and an NVIDIA Jetson processor, and uses it in both surgery and inpatient care. In the operating room it captures milestones, timeouts and debriefs and drafts operative notes for Epic, and on the wards it supports virtual nursing, observation and fall alerts.
Source: AI Health Index, October 2026
Questions buyers ask
How does each one capture the operating room?
Apella mounts four fixed wall cameras per operating room and runs its own computer vision models, a YOLO based detector and a transformer event detector, to timestamp events. Artisight installs an all in one device with dual 4K cameras, a microphone array and radar, and runs detection and voice recognition on an NVIDIA Jetson processor inside the hospital. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How long is footage kept?
Apella holds encrypted footage for a period each hospital agrees, capped at 28 days, and uses it to train its models and check quality. Artisight says it stores no video or audio from surgery and holds protected health information in temporary databases for less than 24 hours; its models retrain at each site on de identified and synthetic data. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What reaches the EHR?
Apella writes event timestamps back to Epic in real time and also supports Oracle Health Cerner. Artisight sends OR timestamps and milestones into perioperative documentation, drafts operative notes into Epic, and names two way integration with Epic and Cerner with no interface fees. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified October 12, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Hospital & Unit Operations page.
Houston Methodist uses Apella and holds a stake in it; some hospitals that use Artisight are likewise among its investors.