Microsoft, Nuance News May Signify Next Era of AI in Healthcare

Artificial intelligence in healthcare has mostly existed in the realm of the hypothetical. Clinical use cases for AI algorithms permeate the research sector, while rarely infiltrating real-world care settings.

With the recent news of Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Nuance Communications, experts believe AI may be on the verge of breaking into front-end care delivery – likely in the form of voice recognition and virtual assistant technologies.

Nuance is a leading provider of conversational AI and cloud-based ambient intelligence for healthcare. The two companies will focus on using AI to listen in on consultations between patients and providers and incorporate that information into the EHR, which could help reduce administrative burdens and burnout among clinicians.

“This coming together is about empowering healthcare,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an investor call, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. “It’s now very clear that healthcare organizations that accelerate their digital investments can improve patient outcomes and reduce cost at scale.”

Applying AI tools to the EHR in order to free up physicians’ time isn’t a new venture. At HIMMS18, held just a little over three years ago, ambient AI was a key topic of discussion – despite its decidedly unremarkable applications.

“There are a lot of vendors who are working to use AI for some very sexy problems in healthcare, like new precision medicine approaches for rare diseases,” Girish Venkatachaliah, former vice president of athena.Intelligence, athenahealth, told HealthITAnalytics at HIMSS18.

“It’s great that someone is doing that, but we’re not looking at AI as a way to solve those moonshots. We’re focused on the decidedly unsexy stuff: taking out the garbage and doing the grunt work of reducing frictions in the system that drive up administrative burdens. We’ve referred to AI before as plumbing that can take the sewage out of our current workflows. That might be a little gross, but that’s really where our needs are right now.”

While the use of voice recognition technology in clinical care is relatively familiar territory, the ramifications of the pandemic have incited tech companies like Microsoft to ramp up their stake in the game.

Like it did in so many other areas of healthcare, COVID-19 highlighted a glaring need for software and tools that can simplify clinical workflows – a gap that vendors are increasingly looking to fill.

On the heels of the news from Microsoft, Suki, a provider of voice AI technology for healthcare, announced that it is joining the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) Member Advantage Program.

The company will offer its AI-powered, voice-enabled digital assistant to AAOS’ 39,000 orthopaedic surgeons to help them create accurate clinical notes and quickly complete administrative tasks.

“AAOS works with our partners to offer values-driven, evidence-based solutions to support our membership,” said Ben Harkinson, vice president, AAOS Commercial Solutions.

“We are pleased to offer our members access to a program, such as the Suki AI Assistant, that can help reduce time spent in administrative work, giving them more energy to spend on their patients. We are excited to add Suki to the AAOS Member Advantage Program.”

Michigan Medicine also recently partnered with 3M Health Information Systems to implement a full portfolio of the company’s technology across its healthcare system. The AI-powered clinician and revenue cycle solutions are expected to address the growing administrative burdens on clinicians, as well as the inefficiencies and costs of unconnected systems.

"Michigan Medicine believes that technology is one way to become more efficient, reduce cost and reduce administrative burden for our clinicians," added Benjie Johnson, Chief Officer Revenue Cycle Management.

"We are working with 3M as a strategic technology vendor to transform how we create and improve clinical documentation.  It is our goal in the next few years to effectively use ambient technology that will free up clinicians and enable them to focus on patient care."

There is a lot of potential for voice recognition technology in healthcare, and the pandemic has triggered the rapid development of digital clinical tools. As tech companies continue to make their way into the clinical space, it’s possible that the industry will see an influx of AI-driven solutions at the point of care.