Google has announced new capabilities in its Vertex AI Search product that will help clinicians access accurate information about patients more easily. Vertex AI Search is an AI-powered search engine that allows doctors to ask questions about a patient’s records and receive immediate answers, saving time and improving healthcare delivery. The tool can be combined with Med-Palm 2 to enhance decision-making. Mayo Clinic is already integrating this tool into some administrative operations. If proven effective, AI-powered healthcare tools like these could lead to broader adoption and potentially even self-care solutions in the future.
Google brings AI to healthcare with Vertex AI Search
To deliver effective healthcare, clinicians need accurate information about patients. However, with the distributed and unstructured nature of medical records, accessing this information can be challenging.
At the HLTH 23 healthcare innovation conference, Google introduced new capabilities in its Vertex AI Search product, addressing this problem. Vertex AI Search is an AI-powered search engine that allows enterprises to access their structured and unstructured data.
When it comes to patient records, they often contain various types of data such as test results, scans, doctor’s notes, and other FHIR data, making it difficult for doctors to navigate. Vertex AI Search, tuned specifically for healthcare and life sciences, acts like a knowledgeable chatbot that holds comprehensive knowledge about the patient.
Doctors can ask questions like, “Does the patient smoke?” or “What medications has he taken over the last 12 months?” and receive instant answers without having to search through patient records manually.
The Practical Value of Vertex AI Search
The immediate benefit of this AI solution is that it frees up administrative tasks, enabling clinicians to spend more time providing treatment to their patients. A 2016 study funded by the American Medical Association revealed that doctors spent two hours on administrative tasks for every hour spent with a patient.
Imagine the improvement in the level of healthcare doctors could provide if they were relieved from sifting through patient records or searching for billing codes.
Enhanced with Med-Palm 2
Vertex AI Search does an excellent job of understanding the intent behind a query and extracting the relevant answer from a vast pool of data. When combined with Med-Palm 2, Google’s medically-tuned LLM, doctors can make well-informed decisions faster and more efficiently.
The ultimate AI healthcare solution stems from leveraging a suite of tools created by Google:
- Google Cloud Healthcare Data Engine: This engine combines clinical data from various sources into a single longitudinal patient record.
- BigQuery: Patient records are uploaded into BigQuery, Google’s data warehouse, enabling easy data analysis and querying.
- Vertex AI Search: Leveraging the Google Healthcare API and AI, it understands query intent and extracts answers from the BigQuery ML model.
- Med-Palm 2: Analyzes patient information extracted by Vertex AI Search, delivering insights, suggesting diagnoses, and recommending treatments.
Healthcare providers like Mayo Clinic have already started integrating the tool into certain operations. Vish Anantraman, CTO for Mayo Clinic, stated, “Healthcare is a data-intensive industry with a majority of medical knowledge locked up in unstructured documents and text… New search functionality from Vertex AI provides Mayo Clinic with new capabilities for data utilization in various applications.”
While healthcare providers remain cautious in delegating patient care to AI as opposed to human doctors, if these AI healthcare tools prove to be effective and reliable, we could expect a broader rollout. This could significantly enhance the level of healthcare provided by doctors.
Looking ahead, we may witness the emergence of AI-powered self-care solutions, potentially reducing the need for doctor visits altogether.
Bring AI to your company and stay competitive
Gain a competitive edge and evolve your company by leveraging Google’s AI solutions in healthcare with Vertex AI Search. Discover how AI can revolutionize your work processes.
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- Identify Automation Opportunities: Locate key customer interaction points that can benefit from AI.
- Define KPIs: Ensure your AI initiatives have measurable impacts on business outcomes.
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- Implement Gradually: Begin with a pilot, collect data, and progressively expand AI usage.
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