Visitors can see Nvidia's AI technology at the 2024 Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, China on September 19, 2024.
Cost photo | Photo only | Getty Images
Nvidia, Google, Microsoft and dozens of other technology companies are coming to Las Vegas next week to unveil artificial intelligence tools that they say will save doctors and nurses valuable time.
Sunday marks the official start of a health technology conference called HLTH, which is expected to attract more than 12,000 industry leaders this year. CNBC will be on site. Based on the speaker program and pre-conference announcements, AI tools for overcoming administrative burdens will be the star of this year's show.
Doctors and nurses are responsible for mountains of documentation as they work to keep patient records current, contact insurance companies, and comply with regulatory agency regulations. Often these tasks are laboriously performed manually, in part because healthcare data is siled and stored across multiple vendors and formats.
The massive administrative burden is a leading cause of burnout in the industry and one reason why a nationwide shortage of 100,000 healthcare workers is expected by 2028, according to consulting firm Mercer. Tech companies looking to capture a slice of a market where spending could top $6.8 trillion by the end of the decade argue that their generative AI tools can help.
Alex Schiffhauer, group product manager at Google, speaks during the Made By Google event at the company's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California, on August 13, 2024.
Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images
For example, Google said it is working to expand its healthcare customer base by handling administrative burdens using AI.
On Thursday, the company announced the general availability of Vertex AI Search for Healthcare, which it launched as a trial during HLTH last year. Vertex AI Search for Healthcare allows developers to build tools that help doctors quickly search for information in disparate medical records, Google said. According to the company, new capabilities are also now available within Google's Healthcare Data Engine, which helps companies build the platforms they need to support generative AI.
Google released the results of a survey on Thursday showing that doctors spend nearly 28 hours a week on administrative tasks. In the survey, 80% of providers said this clerical work takes away from their time with patients, and 91% said they are positive about using AI to streamline these tasks.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at a company event on artificial intelligence technologies in Jakarta, Indonesia on April 30, 2024.
Dimas Ardian | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Similarly, on October 11, Microsoft announced its collection of tools aimed at reducing the administrative burden on physicians, including medical imaging models, a healthcare agent service, and an automated documentation solution for nurses, most of which are still in early stages Development.
Microsoft already offers an automated documentation tool for doctors through its subsidiary Nuance Communications, which the company acquired in a $16 billion deal in 2021. The tool, called DAX Copilot, uses AI to transcribe patient doctor visits and convert them into clinical notes summaries. Ideally, this means doctors don't have to spend time typing these notes themselves.
Nurses and doctors perform different types of documentation during their shifts. Therefore, Microsoft has announced that it will develop a separate tool for nurses that best suits their workflows.
AI scribe tools like DAX Copilot are enjoying huge popularity this year, and Nuance's competitors like Abridge, which has reportedly raised more than $460 million, and Suki, which has raised $165 million, will also be represented at the HLTH conference.
Dr. Shiv Rao, the founder and CEO of Abridge, told CNBC in March that the speed at which the healthcare industry has adopted this new form of clinical documentation is “historic.” Abridge received a coveted investment from Nvidia's venture capital division that same month.
Nvidia is also preparing to handle the workload of doctors and nurses at HLTH.
Kimberly Powell, the company's vice president of healthcare, will deliver a keynote on Monday explaining how the use of generative AI will help healthcare professionals “spend more time on patient care,” according to the company's website Conference.
Nvidia's graphics processing units, or GPUs, are used to build and deploy the models that power OpenAI's ChatGPT and similar applications. As a result, Nvidia has been one of the main beneficiaries of the AI boom. Nvidia shares are up more than 150% year-to-date, and the stock has tripled last year.
The company has steadily expanded into the healthcare sector in recent years, offering a range of AI tools for medical devices, drug development, genomics and medical imaging. Nvidia also announced expanded partnerships with companies like Johnson & Johnson And GE Healthcare in March.
While the healthcare sector has historically been slow to adopt new technologies, the enthusiasm for administrative AI tools has been undeniable since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene two years ago.
Still, many health systems are still in the early stages of evaluating tools and vendors and will be making the rounds on the HLTH show floor. Technology companies must demonstrate their ability to address one of healthcare's most complex problems.
Comments are closed.