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Diving brief:
- Oracle has joined a large number of health technology companies offering generative artificial intelligence tools Monday, announcing capabilities that will be integrated into the software giant’s recently acquired health records system.
- Its clinical digital assistant, which will be available next year, will automatically take notes during visits with patients and can suggest next steps for providers, such as ordering medications or scheduling labs, according to a press release.
- Oracle also announced patient tools, available now, that include the ability to receive generative AI responses to medical questions and use voice commands to schedule appointments or pay bills. Clinicians will be able to send information to patients via chat on their patient portal, such as reminding them to bring in lab results.
Dive overview:
Generative AI, which can create new content like text or images, has become an increasingly hot topic for those in the healthcare industry, with a number of major tech companies launching tools that, according to them, will reduce the administrative tasks of providers.
Earlier this summer, Amazon unveiled its own clinical documentation service called HealthScribe, while Google said it would broaden access to its major linguistic model who is trained in medical information to more clients in the healthcare and life sciences industry.
Last month, Microsoft and Epicthe nation’s largest EHR vendor, announced it will expand its partnership on generative AI tools and work to “deploy dozens” of technologies such as clinical note summarization, medical coding suggestions and tools data mining.
Note-taking is a major goal of generative AI in healthcare, as many providers report. spend a lot of time on EHR tasks such as documenting patient visits, entering patient orders, and billing and coding.
Although relatively few healthcare executives are currently have a strategy for generative AIabout half say they are developing one or plan to do so soon, according to a survey by consulting firms Bain and Klas Research.
But some experts are concerned about rapid deployment of generative AI in healthcare, noting that some models have proposed incorrect information. They also question who should be held accountable for potential errors and whether AI will inadvertently perpetuate bias and worsen existing health care inequities.
Oracle strengthened its presence in the healthcare sector last year with the acquisition for more than $28 billion of EHR company Cerner. But the commercial sector is confronted “short-term headwinds” for its growth rate as Oracle transitions its customers from licensed purchases to cloud subscriptions, meaning less upfront revenue, executives said on an earnings call last week.
Nonetheless, Cerner also expects new contracts worth a total of more than $1 billion, executives said.
