The GE Healthcare booth is seen ahead of the 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) at the China National Convention Center on August 28, 2022 in Beijing, China.
Ye HiFi | China News Service | Getty Images
GE Healthcare On Monday, she announced a new artificial intelligence application that she said will save time for doctors diagnosing and treating cancer.
CareIntellect for Oncology, as the tool is called, will help oncologists quickly learn about a patient's history and disease progression by quickly displaying the data they need, the company said. GE HealthCare said it wants to spare oncologists the hassle of digging through records so they can focus on caring for their patients.
Healthcare data is extremely difficult to analyze, and up to 97% of the data hospitals produce goes unused, according to a Deloitte report. This information is stored across multiple vendors and file formats such as images, lab test results, clinical notes, and device readings, which can be very cumbersome for doctors to sort through.
“It takes a very long time, and it's very frustrating for these doctors,” Dr. Taha Kass Hout, global chief science and technology officer at GE HealthCare, told CNBC in an interview.
CareIntellect for Oncology will be able to summarize clinical reports and identify when patients deviate from their treatment plans, Cass Hutt said. The system can report when a patient misses a lab test, for example, so the doctor can determine the best next steps.
“For cancer patients, the treatment journey can last for years and include many visits to the doctor,” he said.
CareIntellect from GE HealthCare for Oncology
Courtesy of GE Healthcare
CareIntellect for Oncology can also help identify relevant clinical trials that patients may be eligible for, saving oncologists' work hours, said Chelsea Fine, vice president of digital products at GE HealthCare. This process traditionally requires doctors to scroll through a database of available trials, memorize inclusion and exclusion criteria and comb through patient records to determine a good fit, Fine told CNBC.
“What we did was remove that,” she said.
The company said the purpose of the new app is to save oncologists time and effort, but if doctors want to delve into more details, CareIntellect for Oncology allows them to view the original referenced record.
GE HealthCare plans to make CareIntellect for Oncology widely available to U.S. customers in 2025, and will initially be optimized for the treatment of prostate and breast cancer. Health organizations such as Tampa General Hospital are already evaluating it, the company said. Because the tool is cloud-based, it will drive recurring revenue for GE HealthCare, Cass Hutt said.
Cass Hutt said the company plans to offer additional applications under the CareIntellect brand in the future. He added that the oncology tool is the first offering, and healthcare organizations will be able to easily pick and choose which apps they want to enable.
GE HealthCare also hopes to integrate its CareIntellect products with some of the other early AI initiatives it rolled out on Monday.
The company highlighted five new AI products it is developing, including a collaborative team of AI agents, a tool to predict an aggressive type of breast cancer recurrence, and a tool to report suspicious mammograms to radiologists more quickly.
GE HealthCare decided to preview the new tools to give customers an idea of the problems they are trying to solve, Cass-Hout said. He said the company will seek feedback from healthcare organizations and will work with regulators as necessary.
For example, GE HealthCare is exploring how a group of AI agents can work together as a team to support doctors through its tool called Health Companion.
Agents at Health Companion will be trained as experts in specific fields, such as radiology, pathology or genomics, and will provide insights based on their expertise, Cass-Hout said. Agents can determine whether a specific symptom is a side effect of treatment or a sign of disease progression, for example, and suggest next steps, he added.
Ideally, the tool will give doctors the same kind of support they expect from working with a multidisciplinary team, Cass Hutt said. But although consulting a panel of experts may take days or weeks, the Health Companion will be available immediately.
“Right now, this is an early concept,” he added. “Our goal is to raise the standard of care and eliminate the burdens on doctors trying to care for their patients.”
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