Google’s artificial push is gaining momentum as the company has announced an all-new AI model for healthcare. Called MedLM, it is a family of foundation models fine-tuned for healthcare industry use cases. According to Google, healthcare organisations are exploring the use of AI for a range of applications, from basic tasks to complex workflows. “Through piloting our tools with different organisations, we’ve learned the most effective model for a given task varies depending on the use case,” said Yossi Matias, vice president, engineering & research, Google.

How will the models help doctors?

According to Aashima Gupta, global director, healthcare strategy & solutions, Google Cloud, there are two MedLM models.The first MedLM model is larger, designed for complex tasks. The second is a medium model, able to be fine-tuned and best for scaling across tasks. “The development of these models has been informed by specific healthcare and life sciences customer needs, such as answering a healthcare provider’s medical questions and drafting summaries,” said Gupta in a blog post.
Google cited examples of the models which are being tested by healthcare providers. “Many of the companies we’ve been testing MedLM with are now moving it into production in their solutions, or broadening their testing,” said Gupta.
For example, as per Google, HCA Healthcare has been piloting a solution to help physicians with their medical notes in four emergency department hospital sites. Physicians use an Augmedix app on a hands-free device to create accurate and timely medical notes from clinician-patient conversations in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Augmedix’s platform uses natural language processing, along with Google Cloud’s MedLM on Vertex AI, to instantly convert data into drafts of medical notes, which physicians then review and finalise before they’re transferred in real time to the hospital’s electronic health record (EHR). “These products can save time, reduce burnout, increase clinician efficiency, and improve overall patient care,” pointed Gupta.
Google says that while it wants to bring “the transformative potential of generative AI to healthcare, we’re focused on enabling professionals with a safe and responsible use of this technology.” That’s a big reason why Google is working with practitioners, researchers, health and life science organisations, and the individuals at the forefront of healthcare every day.