At the 2024 Healthcare Information and Managemet Systems Society (HIMSS) Global Conference and Exhibition, Google Cloud showcased its latest advancements in generative AI (gen AI) designed to empower healthcare workers and streamline workflows. The company’s focus is on alleviating administrative burdens and fostering the development of assistive technologies for clinicians.
A major highlight was the update to Vertex AI Search for Healthcare. This innovative solution goes beyond traditional search functions. It leverages gen AI to deliver highly relevant, “medically-tuned” searches across a vast spectrum of healthcare data, including the ever-growing volume of FHIR data and complex clinical notes. This empowers healthcare and life science organizations to build sophisticated data analytics and AI solutions tailored to their specific needs.
Vertex AI Search for Healthcare integrates seamlessly with MedLM, a suite of Google Cloud’s foundation models specifically designed for healthcare applications. This powerful combination reflects Google’s deep understanding of the healthcare industry’s unique challenges. The company acknowledges the immense strain placed on healthcare systems due to rising administrative costs, workforce shortages, and alarming rates of physician burnout.
By deploying gen AI solutions, Google Cloud envisions a future where healthcare providers, payers, electronic health records (EHR) companies, and life science organizations work more efficiently. Imagine a world where healthcare workers can leverage AI to streamline their workflows and dedicate more time to patient care.
Vertex AI Search for Healthcare tackles a major pain point: the struggle to locate crucial information within EHRs. Traditionally, this process requires clinicians to sift through mountains of data spread across different systems. Google Cloud’s solution eliminates this frustration by enabling searches “grounded in the patient record.” This means Vertex AI Search for Healthcare can scour EHR data, scanned documents, and other clinical data sources to surface the most relevant information directly. Clinicians no longer need to waste precious time clicking through countless pages of notes or toggling between disparate applications.
The synergy between Vertex AI Search for Healthcare and MedLM allows healthcare organizations to find answers to complex medical questions within a patient’s medical record and from the vast knowledge base of MedLM. The tool also offers configurable cloud APIs and data platform integration, empowering developers to create custom solutions that perfectly align with organizational needs.
“Not all generative AI is created equal, and in healthcare, the stakes are particularly high,” said Aashima Gupta, Global Director for Healthcare Strategy and Solutions at Google Cloud. “Healthcare organizations require enterprise-grade gen AI solutions, grounded in real data. Vertex AI Search for Healthcare is already making a difference for healthcare organizations by helping ensure clinicians have the right information and insights at the right time to inform decisions and improve the overall quality of patient care.”
The benefits of this technology extend far beyond streamlined information retrieval. Industry leaders recognize its potential to alleviate a significant burden on healthcare professionals. Helen Waters, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Meditech, exemplifies this sentiment. “Meditech’s vision to embed search within the Expanse workflows allows us to leverage Google Clould’s AI capabilities to ease this burden. We will continue to empower clinicians with cutting-edge decision-making tools and enable clinician efficiency.”
Google Cloud unveiled two exciting new MedLM capabilities for exploration and testing by their customers. One is a gen AI model designed specifically for classifying chest X-rays. This domain-specific model, offered as an API, can be used for various purposes, including operational screening and diagnostics.
The second innovative offering is a task-specific API called “condition summary.” This tool aims to generate a chronological list of a patient’s conditions, complete with AI-generated summaries for each condition, along with citations from the original source documents. This provides clinicians with a clear and concise overview of a patient’s medical history, allowing them to make informed treatment decisions.
Looking ahead, Google Cloud promises even more functionalities within the MedLM suite. Furthermore, they are committed to expanding the reach of the Healthcare Data Engine (HDE) by transitioning it to a consumption-priced, managed service. This move will make HDE more accessible to a wider range of healthcare organizations, empowering them to build robust data platforms. Additionally, Google Cloud plans to extend HDE’s global reach by deploying it across most cloud regions in Europe and the Asia Pacific.
By harnessing the power of generative AI, Google Cloud is poised to revolutionize the healthcare landscape. Their commitment to developing solutions that address the specific challenges faced by healthcare workers has the potential to alleviate burnout, improve efficiency, and ultimately, lead to better patient care.
