LAS VEGAS — Generative AI was a hot topic at the annual HLTH conference in Las Vegas last year. This is the breakthrough that those in the health tech industry needed, or thought they did, enabling everything from diagnosing patients virtually to performing surgeries to finding cures for diseases. I had the potential to do it.
This year, major players in the industry are adopting a more cautious stance. In other words, it’s more hands-on and less picture-perfect.
Two themes emerged at this year’s HLTH, held at the Venetian Expo. The first helps automate routine tasks to avoid “crisis levels” of burnout. The second is the slow response time of AI and its underlying large-scale language models (LLMs).
The latter is a concept that has been adopted throughout the technology industry and is known as the “reasoning phase.” As Sequoia Capital said in a recent blog, “That’s not enough.” [language] It’s simply a model for knowing things. You need to pause, evaluate, and reason decisions in real time. ”
Gary Lynch, global practice leader for healthcare and life sciences at Verizon (VZ), pointed to the first theme: the need to solve existing problems. (Verizon owns a 10% stake in Yahoo Inc., the parent company of Yahoo Finance).
“When I walk, [conference] You’ll see a lot of these new and interesting clinical applications on the floor. But we’ll never get to remote surgery unless we actually help our hospital partners become more efficient,” Lynch said.
Does AI mean less paperwork for doctors? (Getty Creative) · Tom Warner, via Getty Images
Companies like Verizon and Nvidia (NVDA) are key to the foundation on which technology needs to be built, while companies like Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) are key to the foundation on which they need to build their technology, while companies like Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) have paid access to cloud computing and AI. We provide a foundation such as Tools — Create solutions that can revolutionize your industry. They all attended this year’s HLTH and spoke to Yahoo Finance about advances in the industry.
The idea of automating tasks is not new, but the technology is finally at a point where it can become a reality, experts told Yahoo Finance at the conference.
“Over the past year and a half, many of these new platforms didn’t exist. All of these capabilities didn’t exist,” said Umesh Rustogi, general manager of health and life sciences data platforms at Microsoft. Masu.
The most obvious example is an AI scribe. The AI scribe listens to and transcribes patient consultations, identifying relevant information such as the reason for the consultation and doctor’s advice and prescriptions, and adding it to the patient’s electronic medical record. (Companies like Microsoft and Amazon (AMZN) have launched these products in the past year, which some experts say save doctors hours of time.)
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John Couris, CEO of Tampa General Hospital, said the scribes improve the quality of patient care while also reducing the burden on doctors during after-hours work. “They’re working at 7 or 8 p.m. while they’re at their kid’s baseball game, or they’re working at 11 a.m., 12 p.m. or 1 a.m. taking notes. That’s not sustainable. Yes,” Couris said.
Verizon’s Lynch says other solutions are also being planned.
“Let me give you an example: asset tracking. Nurses spend an hour of their day just looking for things. So we want them to pick up their phone and say, “Where is the closest wheelchair?” We’re building a solution where you can ask, ‘Where is the nearest IV pump?’ ” he said.
The ideal solution would be one that integrates with existing systems, rather than creating a separate system, known as a point solution, for hospitals to install and track, Lynch said.
Greg Collard, senior research director at Google AI, said there is widespread agreement that major changes are needed in healthcare.
AI may finally be fulfilling its promise to healthcare providers. (Getty Creative) · Johnny Greig (via Getty Images)
But it’s not easy, and no company can do it. Instead, more collaboration between technology companies and hospitals may be needed.
“The most important thing is that we don’t work in this field like seven-year-olds playing soccer… [where] “Everyone is going for the ball and we’re missing bigger chances,” he said.
That said, AI is finally delivering on the promise of digital health for healthcare providers.
“AI is certainly still a big buzzword. Everyone is putting AI in their booth,” Verizon’s Lynch said.
But it won’t be as easy as plug-and-play, Google’s Corrado said.
“I don’t think it’s going to work just imagining that we can do everything the way we’ve been doing in medicine for the last 50 years, just add AI,” he said. .
Anjalee Khemlani is a senior health reporter at Yahoo Finance, covering all areas of pharma, insurance, care services, digital health, PBM, and health policy and politics. Of course, this also includes GLP-1. Follow Anjalee on most social media platforms @AjKhem.
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