The pace of innovation in healthcare in general, and medical imaging in particular, is galloping ahead.
This is occurring as staffing and time are in short supply and the healthcare workforce is struggling to keep up. Technology offers the opportunity to bridge the gap.
In a November Becker's Hospital Review webinar sponsored by Merative, David Gruen, MD, Merative's chief medical officer, and Dan Margulies, Merative's chief technical officer, discussed how to understand cloud, AI, security and interoperability within the context of clinical workflows, patient experience and healthcare delivery overall.
Three key takeaways were:
1. Cloud infrastructure enhances the protection, availability and durability of data. Cloud is a scalable, interoperable method of delivering services and products. Because cloud is a utility consumption model, healthcare providers can scale up or scale down its use of the technology based on their needs, reducing cost through flexible usage without sacrificing performance.
Cloud services provide the ability to be highly available — a business asset in an increasingly online environment — and interoperable, enabling the exchange of information without physical exchange. Storing data in a repository that allows multiple people to access and act upon it brings efficiency and accuracy to the patient care process. "It's unfortunate that the highest users of the healthcare system — the sickest users — have the highest burden of carrying their charts and records from place to place and retelling their story with every practitioner," Mr. Margulies said. "For interoperability, I see cloud as a game-changer."
2. Artificial intelligence (AI) complements. Across the healthcare industry, a shrinking workforce means constant staffing shortages at every level. AI leverages algorithms and computer power to analyze large volumes of data, providing decision support for clinicians that moves time away from managing data and toward an increased focus on practice. AI solutions can bring critical findings to the forefront in a timely manner, streamlining physician workflows and proactively supporting better patient outcomes.
Merative uses AI to read images without radiologist intervention, providing a supplemental pathway to flag critical issues in a timely manner and streamline physician workflows. "Humans supported by AI . . . and augmented by information is truly the recipe for change," Dr. Gruen said.
3. User-specific controls ensure data security and privacy. Using cloud services ensures greater interoperability to facilitate improved communication between practitioners and break down barriers between siloed departments. In addition to the robust security available through cloud providers, industry regulations of healthcare technology require encryption at every point of interaction to ensure secure storage of and access to personal health information and personal identifiable information; however, increased interoperability and collaboration require the development of additional layers of security.
As Merative has built out its cloud-based imaging suite and robust portfolio to deal with multiple "-ologies," the company has prioritized protections to further ensure images and accompanying data are only accessible by authorized users, so that patients do not have to worry about sensitive images and sensitive data being shared.
Given the incredible gains in the past decade, cloud technology and AI are well-positioned to support healthcare delivery and address healthcare's workforce challenges. AI helps connect individual digital tools and platforms into a secure healthcare infrastructure. This infrastructure allows data to be used to collaborate to recognize patterns, identify risk and enable proactive and predictive strategies to maintain patient health and provide more effective, efficient and timely care. "I think we need to pivot from health systems to the concept of 'systems of health,' where we keep people well . . . the next five years are going to see an explosion of those kinds of tools so we really do move to systems of health," Dr. Gruen said.
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