This week, AI applications continue to emerge in healthcare, with new use cases and deployments of all shapes and sizes. AI is streamlining documentation at federally qualified health centers, helping expand access to effective mental health services, and ensuring secure digital transformation by design, to name just three.
FHQCs, CHCs using voice AI
Utah Navajo Health System, CenterPlace Health, Access Health Louisiana and PrimeCare Health are reducing their clinical and operational documentation burdens with ambient notetaking, coding, dictation and more, according to an announcement Thursday from Suki, an AI voice assistant for healthcare.
The company said more than 250 U.S. health systems and clinics have reduced documentation by an average of 72% and time spent in pajamas by nearly six hours.
“Suki is a game changer; for my personal mental health,” said Dr. Leslie McNaughtan, a family medicine specialist at Utah-based UNHS, a designated community health center that provides medical, dental and behavioral health care in the Navajo Nation and southeastern Utah, in a statement provided by the provider.
Suki also said it can deliver a nine-times return on investment in one year and is a significant benefit to federally qualified health centers and CHCs with limited resources.
McNaughtan said she has complex patients and many patients arrive late for their appointments, which impacts her workflows and often diverts her attention from patients to the nearest computer terminal.
“Suki has lightened my administrative load to the point where I feel like I can continue to practice medicine,” she said.
Last month, Suki also announced that its self-updating ambient voice documentation software can be integrated into many electronic medical records, including Epic, Oracle Cernerathenahealth, Meditech and others, can now be implemented via APIs by pasting code.
NLP for Mental Health
Mpathic, a provider of actionable conversation analytics that claims to improve healthcare behaviors, announced it has received funding from the National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research to test AI and natural language processing to analyze provider-patient encounter transcripts in Wave’s AI model.
By leveraging AI and NLP to analyze Wave’s conversational data from 300 half-hour health coaching sessions, the company said in a July 11 statement that it will improve cultural alignment in provider-patient interactions.
According to mpathic project summaryMarginalized communities are also less likely to seek treatment, less likely to find or access quality care, and less likely to complete treatment.
With the project “Empathy for All: Generative AI that Improves Cultural Alignment Between Patients and Care Providers in Real Time,” the Bellevue, Washington-based company said it aims to use AI to:
- Facilitate cultural alignment between mental health providers and patients.
- Closing the mental health care gap for underserved racial and ethnic populations.
- Improve therapeutic outcomes and patient satisfaction.
“Our collaboration with mpathic on this project is not just about technological innovation; it is a step toward true access to mental health care that recognizes and adapts to the diversity of human culture,” Dr. Sarah Adler, Wave founder and CEO, said in the release. grant announcement.
“It’s about creating tools that allow us to see each patient more fully and meet them where they are, with respect, humility and understanding.”
According to the NIH website, mpathic will receive $219,212 in funding from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct the research.
Secure by Design Certificates
TruCare, a value-based care platform for payers, providers and public health organizations that leverages generative AI in population health management tools, announced July 9 that it has achieved a two-year HITRUST Risk-Based Certification. The company also achieved SOC 2 compliance.
Last week, 1upHealth announced that its native data aggregation platform Fast Health Interoperability Resources received one-year HITRUST certification validation to manage data protection and mitigate cybersecurity threats.
While open standards-based data formats and technologies can be leveraged in the cloud, they are “often hampered by a volatile environment marred by intense merger and acquisition activity,” Pieter De Leenheer, the company’s chief technology officer, noted in a press release. blog post about HIMSS24.
To defend against the onslaught of cybersecurity threats to healthcare, federal agencies and health data security consultants are urging underprepared vendors to strengthen the security of their IT infrastructure and ensure that their business partners are compliant.
“1upHealth’s HITRUST i1 certification is proof that they are at the forefront of industry best practices in information risk management and cybersecurity,” said Jeremy Huval, HITRUST’s chief innovation officer, in a July 11 statement.
Also, symplr, which offers enterprise healthcare operating software and is collaboration with Amazon Web Services to develop machine learning capabilities, said it has actually achieved SOC 2 for 29 of its products, validating its HIPAA security and privacy risk requirements.
“While recognizing that there are inherent risks, we are taking proactive steps to help strengthen our security protocols and continually improve,” Saeed Valian, symplr’s chief information security officer, said in a July 11 statement.
The company also said its CEO, BJ Schaknowski, has also signed the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Secure by Design commitment initiative.
“Our Secure by Design commitment, SOC 2 certifications and HITRUST recertification for symplr solutions underscore our commitment to preventing and protecting against future threats by safeguarding sensitive data, recognizing that healthcare systems cannot afford disruption,” added Valian.
In addition to the commitment to transparent development, CISA’s awareness campaign includes monitoring AI software development practices in an educational environment. series of alerts designed to push the industry to develop safer products.
Andrea Fox is Editor-in-Chief of Healthcare IT News.
E-mail: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
The HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum will be held September 5-6 in Boston. Learn more and register.
The HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum will be held September 5-6 in Boston. Learn more and register.
