Tech companies head to Las Vegas to tout health AI tools

Nvidia, google, microsoft And dozens of other technology companies are coming to Las Vegas next week to show off artificial intelligence tools they say can save doctors and nurses valuable time.

Sunday marks the official start of the Healthcare Technology Conference. HLTHmore than 12,000 industry leaders are expected to attend this year. CNBC will be broadcast on terrestrial TV. Based on the talk agenda and announcements ahead of the conference, AI tools to overcome administrative burden will be the star of this year’s show.

Doctors and nurses are responsible for managing mountains of documentation to maintain patient records, work with insurance companies, and comply with regulatory agencies. These tasks are often done painstakingly by hand. One reason for this is that medical data is siled and stored across multiple vendors and formats.

A daunting administrative workload is a major cause of burnout in the industry, according to a consulting firm, and part of the reason why there is expected to be a national shortage of 100,000 healthcare workers by 2028. It has become mercer. Technology companies want to tap into a slice of the market where they can reach the top. $6.8 trillion It claims its generative AI tools could help with spending by the end of the decade.

Google, for example, said it is working to expand its healthcare customer base by leveraging AI to tackle administrative burden.

On Thursday, the company announced General availability of Vertex AI Search for Healthcare, piloted during last year’s HLTH. Google says Vertex AI Search for Healthcare allows developers to build tools that help doctors quickly search for information across disparate medical records. New capabilities within Google’s Healthcare Data Engine to help organizations build the platform they need to support generative AI are also now available, the company said.

Google released on Thursday Survey results It says clinicians spend nearly 28 hours a week on administrative tasks. The survey found that 80% of healthcare providers say this administrative work takes time away from patients, and 91% feel open to using AI to streamline these tasks. I did.

Similarly, Microsoft on October 11 announced a suite of tools aimed at reducing administrative workload for clinicians, including medical image models, a healthcare agent service, and an automated documentation solution for nurses. Most of them are still in their early stages. development.

Microsoft already offers automated documentation tools for doctors through its subsidiary Nuance Communications, which it acquired in 2021 in a $16 billion deal. The tool, called DAX Copilot, uses AI to transcribe a doctor’s examination of a patient and convert it into a clinical note or note. overview. Ideally, this means that physicians do not have to spend time entering these notes themselves.

Because nurses and doctors create different types of documents during their workdays, Microsoft said it is building different tools for nurses that best fit their workflows.

AI scribing tools like DAX Copilot have exploded in popularity this year, as have Nuance competitors like Abridge. It is said that he was raised Suki has raised over $460 million in funding $165 millionwill also be participating in the HLTH conference.

Dr. Shiv Rao, founder and CEO of Abridge, told CNBC in March that he feels the speed at which the healthcare industry is adopting this new form of clinical documentation is “historic.” said. Abridge received what he coveted investment That same month, it was acquired by Nvidia’s venture capital arm.

Nvidia is also prepared to handle the workload of HLTH doctors and nurses.

Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of medical affairs, spoke in Monday’s keynote about how the use of generative AI can help healthcare professionals “spend more time on patient care,” according to the conference website. He plans to explain how it is useful.

Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) are used to create and deploy models that power OpenAI’s ChatGPT and similar applications. As a result, Nvidia has become one of the main beneficiaries of the AI ​​boom. Nvidia stock is up more than 150% since the beginning of the year, and has tripled in value over the last year.

The company has steadily expanded into the healthcare space in recent years, offering a wide range of AI tools across medical devices, drug discovery, genomics, and medical image processing. Nvidia also announced expanded partnerships with companies including: johnson & johnson and GE Healthcare In March.

The healthcare sector has historically been slow to adopt new technology, but ever since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene two years ago, the buzz around management AI tools has been undeniable.

Still, many health systems are still in the early stages of evaluating tools and vendors that will be making their way around the exhibit floor at HLTH. Technology companies need to prove they have the ability to tackle one of health care’s most complex problems.