Google Cloud revealed several artificial intelligence partnerships with healthcare organizations on Thursday, including for projects that summarize clinical notes and automate prior authorizations.
The partnerships come as more healthcare and life science firms are deploying AI agents, or advanced tools that can more autonomously plan and perform tasks, according to a Google Cloud survey of 605 leaders released Thursday. Forty-four percent of executives said their organizations were actively using agents, with 34% reporting they use 10 or more agents.
For example, Hackensack Meridian Health built multiple AI agents using Google’s generative AI technology, including a tool that can recap patients’ medical records for doctors.
The health system’s note summarization agent has helped more than 1,200 clinicians generate more than 17,000 summaries since it went live in June, according to a press release.
The provider began offering a general summary of patient records, but has since been able to customize results by specialty — so an oncologist may see different, more relevant information compared with a urologist, said Sameer Sethi, SVP, chief AI officer, Hackensack Meridian Health.
“We all have been in situations where we go to our physician offices, and the physician is reading the screen while trying to understand and talk to you, right?” he said during the press call. “We’re trying to reduce that time that the physician spends on screen looking at the patient chart.”
The health system is also rolling out two other agents, including an assistant for nurses in Neonatal Intensive Care Units that provides information on best practices and policies, and a tool that summarizes lab results so primary care providers can more quickly draft notes to patients.
The technology giant has also partnered with IKS Health, a company that provides revenue cycle, clinical and other operational products, on an AI platform that detects when prior authorization could be required and helps manage the process.
Its multi-agent system includes a documentation assistant that creates clinical notes on patient visits, a coding agent that aligns billing codes with documentation and a tool that aims to detect when prior authorization is necessary. That agent works with payer systems to collect administrative and clinical data to support the prior authorization request, executives said.
The process also loops in a human worker to ensure the AI is accurate when medically necessary, IKS said.
Additionally on Thursday, Google announced a partnership with virtual cancer care company Color Health to launch an AI assistant that helps women determine their eligibility for breast cancer screenings and schedule care.
