GE HealthCare pronounces time-saving AI tool for doctors who treat cancer

GE HealthCare on Monday announced a latest artificial intelligence application it said will save time for doctors who diagnose and treat cancer.

CareIntellect for Oncology, because the tool is named, will help oncologists get in control on a patient’s history and disease progression by quickly showing them the information they need, the corporate said. GE HealthCare desires to spare oncologists the headache of digging through records in order that they can deal with caring for his or her patients, the corporate said.   

Health-care data is notoriously difficult to research, and as much as 97% of the information produced by hospitals goes unused, based on a Deloitte report. That information is stored across quite a few vendors and file formats reminiscent of images, lab test results, clinical notes and device readings, which will be extremely taxing for doctors to sort through. 

“It is very time-consuming, very frustrating for these clinicians,”  Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, GE HealthCare’s global chief science and technology officer, told CNBC in an interview.

CareIntellect for Oncology will give you the option to summarize clinical reports and discover when patients are deviating from their treatment plans, Kass-Hout said. The system can flag when a patient misses a lab test, as an illustration, in order that their doctor can determine the most effective next steps. 

“For cancer patients, the treatment journey can last years and involve quite a few doctor visits,” he said.

CareIntellect for Oncology may also help discover relevant clinical trials that patients could be eligible for, saving oncologists hours of labor, said Chelsea Vane, vp of digital products at GE HealthCare. That process has traditionally required doctors to scroll through a database of accessible trials, memorize inclusion and exclusion criteria and dig through patient records to find out an excellent fit, Vane told CNBC.

“What we have done is take away that,” she said.

The aim of the brand new app is to avoid wasting oncologists effort and time, but when doctors wish to dive into more detail, CareIntellect for Oncology allows them to view the unique record that is referenced, the corporate said.

GE HealthCare is planning to make CareIntellect for Oncology widely available to U.S. customers in 2025, and it’s going to initially be optimized for prostate and breast cancers. Health organizations reminiscent of Tampa General Hospital are already evaluating it, the corporate said. For the reason that tool is cloud-based, it’s going to drive recurring revenue for GE HealthCare, Kass-Hout said. 

The corporate is planning to introduce additional apps under the CareIntellect brand in the long run, Kass-Hout said. The oncology tool is the primary offering, and health-care organizations will give you the option to simply pick and select the apps that they wish to enable, he added.  

GE HealthCare can also be hoping to integrate its CareIntellect products with among the other early stage AI initiatives it teased on Monday.   

The corporate highlighted five latest AI products that it’s developing, including a collaborative team of AI agents, a tool to predict an aggressive form of breast cancer reoccurrence, and a tool to flag suspicious mammography scans to radiologists more quickly. 

GE HealthCare decided to preview the brand new tools to present customers an idea of the issues it’s trying to resolve, Kass-Hout said. The corporate will solicit feedback from health-care organizations and work with regulators as obligatory, he said. 

As an illustration, GE HealthCare is exploring how a gaggle of AI agents can work together as a team to support doctors through its tool called Health Companion.

The agents in Health Companion might be trained as experts in specific domains, reminiscent of radiology, pathology or genomics, and offer insights based on their expertise, Kass-Hout said. The agents could discover whether a particular symptom is a side effect of treatment or an indication of disease progression, for instance, and suggest next steps, he added. 

Ideally, the tool will give doctors the identical type of support they’d expect from working with a multidisciplinary team, Kass-Hout said. But while consulting a panel of experts can take days or perhaps weeks, Health Companion can be available immediately. 

“In the meanwhile, it’s an early concept,” he said. “Our aim is to raise the usual of care and get ahead of the overburden of clinicians attempting to care for their patient.”

WATCH: The Pulse of AI in Health Care