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Avoiding imagination failure | Reporter’s notebook | Partner news

Tuesday, July 23, 2024
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AI represents the single biggest opportunity to fundamentally transform healthcare since antibiotics.

Brainstorm, collaborate to save healthcare AI from a ‘failure of imagination’

AI proponents run little risk of underestimating the technology’s potential to transform healthcare. In fact, many seem to err on the side of hype. However, the bigger misstep may be failing to imagine the kinds of real-world problems the technology can solve.

The suggestion comes from a strategic communications professional who specializes in thinking creatively about how to unlock opportunities—including those that are, at present, hard to see.

U.S. healthcare “has been frequently caught off-guard by such ‘unexpected’ challenges as the rise of retail health, the demands of an aging population with increasing rates of chronic illnesses and EHR systems implemented without consideration for how they would exchange data, to name a few,” explains the thought leader, Denise Worrell. “At the time, these challenges seemed unimaginable. In retrospect, they were hiding in plain sight all along.”

Worrell, who’s in charge of innovation and transformation at the creative-services agency Langrand, airs out her cogitations in a piece published by MedCity News July 21. She writes:

‘AI represents the single biggest opportunity to fundamentally transform healthcare since antibiotics (sorry, fax machines). It isn’t too late for healthcare to prevent another failure of imagination.’

Worrell describes five ways to do just that.

1. Find the edge.

“Widen your focus beyond your organization and get inspired by investigating all the weird and wonderful ways people are leveraging AI to better their lives—financially, physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and so on,” Worrell writes. “Now imagine how those ideas might be applied in healthcare—not just to improve current processes but also to overcome the challenges of the healthcare system that every stakeholder struggles with.” More:  

‘Early AI adopters are already pointing to the answers; healthcare just needs to open its eyes (and mind).’

2. Embrace the genie.

“We can’t put AI back in the bottle,” she points out. “Instead of raging against the machine(s), spend your energy working to influence what is coming whether healthcare likes it or not.”

‘Make no mistake: this is a tool that has the power to redefine population health at a scale we’ve never even dreamt of. Why not harness that power in a way that works for everyone?’

3. Think like a patient.

“Instead of asking how AI can make your scheduling process more efficient, ask how AI might help patients find and schedule the care they need,” Worrell advises. “This small shift in perspective can make a big difference.”

‘By framing your use cases in a way that’s meant to benefit the people you serve, you’ll find yourself developing unexpected solutions that are more likely to get adopted and be successful. Win: win.’

4. Rethink the patient-provider dynamic.

“The time is coming when patients will come into their visits armed with more knowledge than their providers. (In fact, it might already be here.) No, they won’t have gone to medical school overnight, but they will have used AI to analyze their symptoms and home in on a few possible diagnoses.”

‘Patients may already know what tests need to be ordered to confirm a diagnosis or how their genotype might respond to a particular treatment. I say this not to discount the continued need for physicians but to pose the question: What might this future look like?’

5. Actively collaborate—not only with colleagues but also with consumers.

“The dynamics of care delivery have already begun to shift, whether healthcare likes it or not,” Worrell notes. “Artificial intelligence is so much more than a tool for maximizing internal efficiency: It’s an opportunity to think transformatively about the very nature of human well-being and the business of health. And it’s an opportunity to collaborate alongside healthcare consumers to shape what will be.”

‘Success will come when everyone’s lives are made simpler and more enjoyable. And failure? That comes when you fail to imagine what’s hiding in plain sight. Don’t let your imagination fail you now.’

Read the whole thing.

 

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medical student and mentor

Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

  • Physicians shouldn’t think of AI as a tool to wield and sharpen. They should think of it as a medical student to mold and mentor. Up to a point, of course. The holders of the opinion support their viewpoint with several points of persuasion. For example, medical AI adds a bit of workload burden, much like a human trainee. But, like a good student, it catches on so quickly that it can “meaningfully lighten” the physician’s workload. “As AI increasingly takes on tasks that medical students currently have, we envision a concurrent shift in what medical training will look like.” The authors are a third-year medical student and an attending academic physician. MedPage Today published their thought-provoking piece July 22.
     
  • Steve Jobs ‘got it’ about beautiful packaging. Medical device manufacturers can get it too—and use AI to help get it right. “It’s really important to see [medical] devices and packaging as one system, one unit,” explains subject matter expert Louisa Harvey of ClariMed in a Q&A with Healthcare Packaging. (Yes, there’s a publication dedicated to that beat.) A patient “should instantly feel a continuous energy between the device in question, the packaging and any other materials,” she adds. How can AI help with this? Find out here.
     
  • HHS is looking for a few good tech leaders. Namely the agency needs a chief technology officer, a chief data officer and, yes, a chief AI officer. Announcing the openings on LinkedIn, Steven Posnack of the ONC advises interested individuals to watch for details at usajobs.gov.
     
  • Healthcare insurance ops leaders want to do more with AI. But their companies have been so slow to get it going that they may be holding back the industry. The finding emerged from a survey conducted by ActiveOps. More than three-quarters of respondents, 78%, believe AI could help improve operations. Yet half the field is just starting out with the technology. Meanwhile 33% say their companies rely “too much” on assumptions and human instinct for making important operational decisions, and 30% say their decisions are “not data-driven enough.” Full report here.
     
  • Healthtech supplier Commure is acquiring ambient AI medical documentation outfit Augmedix for $139 million, cash. The acquisition will allow Commure to build “the health AI operating system of the future,” the company’s CEO, Tanay Tandon, says in a news release. Augmedix’s CEO, Manny Krakaris, suggests the deal will position his company to survive and thrive over the long haul.
     
  • GE Healthcare is buying Intelligent Ultrasound Group’s clinical AI software business for $51 million. The takeover will give GE control of image-analysis tools for its ultrasound portfolio, MedtechDive reports. The outlet notes Intelligent Ultrasound is selling the assets because sales growth of its clinical AI offerings has been slower than projected.
     
  • Nvidia hasn’t made inroads into healthcare. Healthcare has made inroads into AI—and Nvidia has been there to help things along. The distinction is important to Nvidia development lead David Ruau, who’s involved with growing the company’s business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In an interview with Pharmaceutical Technology, Ruau suggests healthcare has been hankering for more GPU power to support its embrace of AI. “It’s not that we pushed into the healthcare domain for AI,” he says. “It was an emerging market, and we grew with it.”
     
  • European companies can forget about using Meta’s multimodal Llama model. The Mark Zuckerberg-founded company has decided not to release the soon-to-drop model on the Old Continent because the EU’s regulatory environment has become too unpredictable. The decision “leaves a difficult situation for companies outside the EU who were hoping to provide products and services that use these models,” a watcher at The Verge points out, “as they’ll be prevented from offering them in one of the world’s largest economic markets.” Meanwhile Ars Technica tells the story from a more EU-sympathetic point of view. A senior policy reporter quotes the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency: “In the EU, consumers are able to make truly informed choices and we now take action to safeguard this right.”
     
  • Beware the epistemic risks of botsh*t. That’s the word three writers at Harvard Business Review use to encapsulate “made-up, inaccurate and untruthful chatbot content that humans uncritically use for tasks.” (They don’t replace the i with an asterisk.) “Not effectively managing the risks of botsh*t could have large consequences for individual professionals and leaders, as well as their organizations,” they warn. “Some of these risks include reputational damage, incorrect decisions, legal liability, economic losses and even human safety.” Read the whole thing.
     
  • Recent research in the news:
     
  • Funding news of note:
     
  • From AIin.Healthcare’s news partners:
     

 

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