Amazon Web Services (AWS) said it wants to help clinicians save time summarizing patient visits.
The company has debuted AWS HealthScribe, which uses speech recognition and generative artificial intelligence (AI) to generate clinical documentation, according to a Wednesday (July 26) press release.
“Our healthcare customers and partners tell us they want to spend more time creating innovative clinical care and research solutions for their patients while spending less time building, maintaining and operating foundational health data capabilities,” AWS Vice President of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Services Bratin Saha said in the release.
Documentation is particularly time-consuming for health professionals, Saha added in the release, but tools like HealthScribe let healthcare software providers use a single application programming interface (API) to automatically create transcripts, extract details such as medical terms and medications, and create summaries from doctor-patient discussions.
Earlier this year, PYMNTS explored the way AI’s capabilities hold promise for healthcare, as the technology’s use in biomedical research, cancer screening, product development and treatment recommendation modeling — along with back-office administrative optimization — promises to transform physician decisioning and diagnosing.
However, AI models need data, and data is different in healthcare, which makes any successful integration of next-generation AI tools, especially those that affect care decisions, a challenge to scale while also ensuring patient safety.
To make data-hungry healthcare models work effectively, there needs to be a high quality of annotation, Erik Duhaime, co-founder and CEO of data annotation provider Centaur Labs, said in an interview with PYMNTS posted in May.
It’s unclear if consumers are ready to welcome this tech into their lives when it comes to their medical care. Pew Research found that 60% of American adults are uncomfortable with their healthcare provider relying on AI to diagnose diseases and recommend treatments. And a third of adults said it would lead to worse outcomes.
“The ideal scenario, outside of operational optimization of billing and account management, appears to be one where AI works together with trained physicians and researchers to solve medical problems and enhance care delivery,” PYMNTS wrote in April.