The GE Healthcare booth is seen before the China International Exhibition for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) 2022 at the China National Convention Center on August 28, 2022 in Beijing, China.
Yi Haifei China News Service | Getty Images
GE Healthcare was announced a new artificial intelligence application said it will save time for doctors who diagnose and treat cancer.
CareIntellect for Oncology, as such a tool, will help oncologists to streamline patient history and disease progression by quickly sharing the data they need, the company said. GE says it wants to spare oncologists from digging through records so they can focus on patient care.
Healthcare data is notoriously difficult to analyze, and up to 97% of data produced by hospitals is unused, according to a Deloitte report. The information is stored in multiple vendors and file formats such as images, laboratory test results, clinical notes and device readings, which can be overwhelming for clinicians.
“It’s very time-consuming, very frustrating for these clinics,” Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, GE HealthCare’s global chief science and technology officer, told CNBC in an interview.
CareIntellect for Oncology will be able to summarize clinical reports and identify when patients deviate from their treatment plans, Kass-Hout said. The system can alert when a patient misses a lab test, for example, so the doctor can determine the best next step.
“For a cancer patient, the treatment journey can take years and include many doctor visits,” he said.
GE HealthCare CareIntellect for Oncology
From GE HealthCare
CareIntellect for Oncology can also help identify appropriate clinical trials that patients can participate in, saving oncologists hours of work, said Chelsea Vane, vice president of digital products at GE HealthCare. The process has traditionally required doctors to scroll through databases of available trials, memorize inclusion and exclusion criteria and dig through patient records to determine who is eligible, Vane told CNBC.
“What we’ve done is remove it,” he said.
The goal of the new app is to save oncologists time and effort, but if doctors want to dive into more detail, CareIntellect for Oncology allows them to view the original records they’re referring to, the company said.
GE HealthCare plans to make CareIntellect for Oncology available to US customers by 2025, and will initially be optimized for prostate and breast cancer. Healthcare organizations such as Tampa General Hospital have evaluated it, the company said. Because the tool is cloud-based, it will generate recurring revenue for GE HealthCare, Kass-Hout said.
The company plans to introduce additional apps under the CareIntellect brand in the future, Kass-Hout said. The oncology tool is the first offering, and healthcare organizations will be able to easily pick and choose which apps they want to enable, he said.
GE HealthCare also hopes to integrate its CareIntellect product with several other early-stage AI initiatives it teased on Monday.
The company highlighted five new AI products it is developing, including a collaborative team of AI agents, a tool to predict aggressive breast cancer types, and a tool to flag suspicious mammography scans to radiologists more quickly.
GE HealthCare decided to preview the new tool to give customers an idea of ​​the problems they’re dealing with, Kass-Hout said. The company will seek feedback from health care organizations and cooperate with regulators if necessary, he said.
For example, GE HealthCare is exploring how groups of AI agents can work together as a team to support doctors through a tool called Health Companion.
Agents at Health Companion will be trained as experts in a specific domain, such as radiology, pathology or genomics, and provide insights based on their expertise, Kass-Hout said. The agent can identify whether certain symptoms are a side effect of treatment or a sign of disease progression, for example, and suggest next steps, he added.
Ideally, the tool would provide the same support doctors expect from working with a multidisciplinary team, Kass-Hout said. But while consulting with a panel of experts can take days or weeks, Health Companion will be available immediately.
“Right now, this is an early concept,” he said. “Our goal is to raise the standard of care and prevent the overburden of doctors trying to care for patients.”
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