Microsoft Corporation on Tuesday, October 10, announced new products for data processing and artificial intelligence, with the help of which healthcare organizations will be able to access huge amounts of information collected by doctors and hospitals without any difficulties.
The report of the Deloitte Group of companies providing audit and consulting services indicates that the area of medicine and life sciences generates more than 30% of the data produced worldwide. At the same time, the use of these arrays of information is a time-consuming process, since it is stored in different formats and systems. An example of serious problems in this context is the fact that about 97% of the data generated by hospitals is not used.
Microsoft is trying to solve this problem. During the HLTH conference in Las Vegas, the technology giant announced new tools for Fabric Healthcare, a data and analytics platform announced in May. This platform can combine information from sources such as medical records, images, application systems, laboratory systems, and medical devices. Healthcare sphere organizations within this technological solution can standardize data and access it in one place.
Microsoft claims that the new tools will help eliminate the search for the mentioned sources one by one, which takes a lot of time. The tech giant is currently testing these solutions with selected clients, including Northwestern Medicine, Arthur Health, and SingHealth. From October 10, the new tools are available in preview mode.
Doug King, director of Information Technology at Northwestern Medicine, said that this organization is currently transferring its data to the Fabric system, but has already managed to appreciate the potential of Microsoft tools. According to him, combining disparate arrays of information will allow the sphere of healthcare to increase the number of patients served and improve the quality of services. He also noted that at present the data are of particular importance in the medical area. According to him, arrays of information help not only to know about the number of patients but also provide a high level of awareness about what is happening in the operating room.
Doug King said Northwestern is thoughtfully implementing Microsoft’s technology, saying it could be a game changer if done well. He also said that the organization is thinking about the prospects of using new advanced apps, including patient flow management, staffing, and solutions that allow the integration of large-scale arrays of information about the health status of the population. In his opinion, Microsoft Fabric, Azure, and generative artificial intelligence in their current technological state are able to change the way of life. He also noted that these solutions are probably the best option for solving some of the problems common in sphere healthcare.
Microsoft has also introduced new tools for healthcare facilities as part of its Azure artificial intelligence services. The tech giant presented a chatbot based on generative machine intelligence called Azure AI Health Bot. As part of this solution, information is automatically extracted from their internal data arrays of healthcare organizations and authoritative external sources, for example, the Food and Drug Administration.
Linishya Vaz, Chief Product Manager at Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, says that the new chatbot can be used to ensure that employees of medical institutions receive answers to questions about the most effective treatment options for diseases and about internal processes and protocols. Also, Azure AI Health Bot can be applied by patients to learn about their symptoms and get explanations about medical terms. Linishya Vaz noted that precautions were built into the chatbot. According to her, the client can audit the responses to check the level of their correctness.
Microsoft also announced the Text Analytics for health solution. In this case, consumers are given the opportunity to tag and extract important medical information from unstructured data sources, including, for example, clinical documents and notes. Linishya Vaz says that this tool will have functionality in English, German, French, Italian, Hebrew, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Microsoft also presented three specialized configurations of machine intelligence within the framework of Azure AI Health Insights. As part of these solutions, consumers are offered tools with which doctors, nurses, and researchers will be able to make more informed decisions.
One of the mentioned AI configurations is the patient timeline. In this case, clinicians receive a chronological overview of the patient’s medical history using generative machine intelligence to combine information from unstructured data sources. Linishya Vaz said that this tool allows to find out about doctor visits, procedures, and taking medications.
The second AI configuration simplifies clinical reports. As part of this solution, clinicians can use generative machine intelligence to compile reports in which a lot of complex medical terminology is transformed into formulations that are more understandable to patients.
The third AI configuration provides radiology insights. In this case, radiologists and clinicians can use generative machine intelligence to identify errors and inconsistencies in reports. Also, the AI configuration offers recommendations for correcting defects.
Linishya Vaz says that Microsoft’s new healthcare tools in Azure AI will improve the quality of patient care and help clinicians provide better services.
As we have reported earlier, Microsoft Reportedly Works to Build Cheaper AI Software.
