HIMSS conference participants walk across the exhibition
Source: HIMSS
Debates around AI and its role in healthcare took center stage on the HIMSS Global Health Conference in Chicago, which brought together greater than 35,000 physicians, other healthcare professionals, executives and engineers to discuss the most recent developments in health and technology.
Firms like Microsoft, Google AND Amazon prominently advertised recent health apps for AI on booths at a sprawling exhibition, with expert panels answering questions on how the technology might be used to address industry-wide challenges such as staff shortages and physician burnout.
Many healthcare organizations and firms have been using AI in various ways for years, however the subset known as generative AI exploded into the general public consciousness late last yr when Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched a recent viral chatbot called ChatGPT. Generative AI refers to programs that may use quite complex prompts from end users to generate text or images.
Just as generative AI has captured the eye of most of the people, it has also captivated the medical community.
Artificial intelligence was the main focus of the opening speech of the HIMSS conference, and HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf prefaced the discussion by revealing that he asked ChatGPT how to solve global healthcare challenges. Every year the conference is organized by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Wolf asked the ChatGPT query jokingly, but David Rhew, global medical director at Microsoft, told CNBC in an interview that generative AI could really “transform” in solving big problems within the healthcare industry.
“The potential for these large language models and AI to be applied to clinical workflows is huge, and we’d like to do it responsibly,” he said.
For Rhew, this implies starting with “high impact, low risk” technology applications, such as streamlining administrative tasks.
Developing diagnostic or patient-directed generative AI applications is more dangerous since it poses significant regulatory issues to firms, scientists, and federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration. Rhew said to consider AI as if the healthcare industry had just been brought into the automobile, while not one of the stop signs, traffic lights, or roads had yet been created.
“We still have to determine how to do it together,” he said.
HIMSS Director General Hal Wolf speaking on the HIMSS Conference
Source: HIMSS
Nevertheless, within the meantime, administrative or “back office” tasks require less regulatory oversight, and there is a real need for effective solutions as paperwork is often onerous for clinicians.
Research funded by American Medical Association in 2016 found that for each hour spent with a patient, a doctor spent an extra two hours on administrative work. The study found that doctors typically spend an extra one to two hours in paperwork outside of office hours.
Similarly in 2017, the Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges published a survey where respondents said they spend around 24% of their working time on administrative tasks. Greater than two-thirds of physicians surveyed said that administrative responsibilities “negatively impact their ability to deliver high-quality care.”
HIMSS participants told CNBC that they imagine generative AI could help with these tasks.
Letting AI do paperwork
On Monday, Microsoft announced prolonged cooperation with Epic Systems, a healthcare software company that helps hospitals and other healthcare systems store, share and access electronic health records. Greater than 160 million people use Epic’s MyChart software, which supplies patients direct access to their health information and care team.
The primary application of Epic’s AI technology routinely generates draft responses to messages doctors receive from patients via MyChart. Physicians don’t need to use the suggested design in any respect, but they do save time in the event that they select to edit or post it.
Seth Hain, senior vice chairman of research and development at Epic, told CNBC in an interview that artificial intelligence might be utilized by doctors as an efficient tool for generating hypotheses in the longer term. He said they might give you the chance to ask the patient questions such as: What do you’re thinking that I should look out for regarding this issue?
Peter Lee, vice chairman of research and incubation at Microsoft, told CNBC that an early take a look at Epic’s AI developments brought tears to his eyes.
“It just blew me away,” he said.
Microsoft’s speech recognition subsidiary Nuance Communications also announced a clinical note app called DAX Express, ahead of HIMSS in March. DAX Express goals to reduce the executive burden for clinicians by routinely creating clinical notes inside seconds after a patient visit.
In a live demonstration at HIMSS, Nuance previewed future DAX Express designs and capabilities, which was met with sighs and cheers from a few of the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals within the room.
Greater than 35,000 people attended the 2023 HIMSS conference
Source: HIMSS
Other firms are also working on using generative AI to reduce administrative burdens.
Amazon Web Services on Monday announced the extension cooperation with Philips, a Dutch medical technology company. AWS already supports lots of Philips’ existing cloud and AI initiatives, such as helping radiologists analyze medical scans and pictures faster – even from their homes.
But Monday’s announcement means Philips may even use AWS generative AI technology to simplify clinical workflows and further expand its imaging capabilities.
“Essentially the most exciting thing is that we’re approaching the abyss where we’re at a tipping point where we make the appropriate thing easy,” Shez Partovi, the corporate’s director of innovation and strategy, told CNBC in an interview. Phillips. “And now, for many technologies, the appropriate solution is just a few clicks away.”
Partovi said all of the little tasks doctors have to do are like “death by 1,000 cuts,” so using AI to solve administrative problems could have a real impact on doctors’ quality of life.
On Tuesday also 3M Health Information Systems announced that it also works with Amazon Web Services’ machine learning and generative AI to help reduce the executive burden on physicians. 3M HIS operates a conversational AI platform utilized by greater than 300,000 physicians, and the corporate said in an announcement that AWS technology will make it easier for physicians to automate and complete accurate clinical notes in electronic health records.
Similarly, Google Cloud announced Claims Acceleration Suite last week which uses artificial intelligence to streamline the processing of medical health insurance claims and prior authorization.
According to Medicare and Medicaid service centers, the present prior authorization process takes a median of 10 days. Google’s AI will help ease a few of the administrative burden on providers by converting unstructured data that appears in images, PDFs or other medical documents into an easier-to-digest, structured format.
“They principally require a human to go in there, take that data and put it back into the system for review,” said Amy Waldron, director of communications. “Which to me makes absolutely no sense considering someone has to spend time putting all this wealthy data in there, and we have now an AI that may unlock that value.”
Generative AI has “huge” potential to improve administrative efficiency in healthcare, said Microsoft’s Rhew. Nevertheless, as healthcare and technology firms proceed to make more sophisticated advances, industry leaders, regulators and community scientists will need to be sure that generative AI is fair and doesn’t harm communities.
Technology is prone to bias and discrimination if trained on healthcare data that doesn’t properly reflect patient populations, which might ultimately lead to inappropriate decisions or treatment plans.
As a result, Rhew said, there is a collective responsibility to determine how to rigorously implement AI.
“It’s transformative technology,” he said, “but we have now to determine how to do it responsibly.”