The GE Healthcare booth is seen ahead of the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) 2022 at the China National Convention Center on August 28, 2022 in Beijing, China.
Yi Haifei | Chinese Press Service | Getty Images
GE Health announced Monday a new artificial intelligence This application, according to her, will save time for doctors who diagnose and treat cancer.
CareIntellect for Oncology, as the tool is called, will help oncologists stay informed about a patient’s history and disease progression by quickly showing them the data they need, the company said . GE HealthCare wants to spare oncologists the headache of digging through records so they can focus on caring for their patients, the company said.
Healthcare data is notoriously difficult to analyze, and up to 97% of the data produced by hospitals goes unused, according to one study. Deloitte report. This information is stored across many vendors and file formats, such as images, lab test results, clinical notes and device readings, which can be extremely burdensome for doctors to sort through.
“It takes a lot of time, it’s very frustrating for these clinicians” Dr Taha Kass-HoutGE HealthCare’s global director of science and technology told CNBC.
CareIntellect for Oncology will be able to summarize clinical reports and identify instances where patients deviate from their treatment plans, Kass-Hout said. The system can flag when a patient misses a lab test, for example, so their doctor can determine the best next steps.
“For cancer patients, the treatment journey can last years and involve many doctor visits,” he said.
GE HealthCare CareIntellect for Oncology
Courtesy of GE HealthCare
CareIntellect for Oncology can also help identify relevant clinical trials that patients might be eligible for, saving oncologists hours of work, said Chelsea Vane, vice president of digital products at GE HealthCare. This process traditionally required doctors to comb through a database of available trials, memorize inclusion and exclusion criteria, and dig through patient records to determine a good fit, Vane told CNBC.
“What we did was remove that,” she said.
The goal of the new app is to save oncologists time and effort, but if doctors want to dig deeper, CareIntellect for Oncology allows them to view the original file referenced, the company said.
GE HealthCare plans to make CareIntellect for Oncology widely available to U.S. customers in 2025, and it will initially be optimized for prostate and breast cancers. Health organizations such as Tampa General Hospital are already evaluating 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 applications under the CareIntellect brand in the future, Kass-Hout said. The oncology tool is the first offering, and healthcare organizations will easily be able to choose which apps they want to enable, he added.
GE HealthCare also hopes to integrate its CareIntellect products with some of the other early-stage AI initiatives announced Monday.
The company introduced 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 flag mammograms more quickly suspicious to radiologists.
GE HealthCare decided to preview the new tools to give customers an idea of the problems it is trying to solve, Kass-Hout said. The company will seek feedback from health care organizations and work with regulators as necessary, he said.
For example, GE HealthCare is studying how a group of AI agents can work together as a team to support doctors through its tool called Health Companion.
Health Companion agents will be trained as experts in specific fields, such as radiology, pathology or genomics, and will offer insights based on their expertise, Kass-Hout said. Officers could identify 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 offer doctors the same kind of support they would expect from working with a multidisciplinary team, Kass-Hout said. But while consulting a panel of experts can take days or weeks, Health Companion would be available immediately.
“At the moment it’s a preliminary concept,” he said. “Our goal is to raise the level of care and keep ahead of the workload of clinicians trying to care for their patients.”
