GE to show artificial intelligence apps and smart devices for precision health at HIMSS19

The company will be highlighting its new Edison platform, AI algorithms built into medical devices as well as diagnostics and therapeutics for precision medicine.

By Tom Sullivan

January 07, 2019

08:59 AM

Keith Bigelow of GE Healthcare says the industry is on a journey to precision health that starts with driving down costs and improving patient experience.

GE Healthcare will be bringing technologies for precision health to the HIMSS19 show floor when the Global Conference kicks off in February.

“The GE Healthcare vision for precision health features several components, including precision diagnostics, or how to make the right decision for the patient; precision therapeutics, or how to perform precise treatments; and precision monitoring, or how to help the patient stay well and determine what happens next,” said Keith Bigelow, GE Healthcare’s senior vice president of Analytics & AI. “The power of AI lies in its ability to support decision-making.”

GE projects that the AI market particular to healthcare will exceed $6.5 billion by 2021, and that nearly 40 percent of healthcare decision makers are planning to invest in machine learning and predictive analytics for imaging and other clinical applications.

To that end, Bigelow said that GE Healthcare will be showing apps and smart devices built using its Edison intelligence platform, including AI algorithms embedded into medical devices for use cases both clinical, financial and operational in nature.

“In our innovation area, we’ll be highlighting critical care solutions in a hospital setting,” Bigelow said.

GE introduced Edison at the end of November, 2018, and will be showing the platform and related tools at its booth. When it launched, GE Healthcare described Edison as an AI platform designed to enable hospitals to reap more value from technology such as clinical apps on devices, in the cloud on the edge by combining diverse data sets from various settings, such as healthcare networks and life sciences companies.

The company is also looking to establish an ecosystem of third-party developers building for its platform. Apps that have already been announced include: AIRx, an automated workflow tool for MRI brain scanning, Critical Care Suite to help identify pneumothorax at the point-of-care, CT Smart Subscription, which offers continuous access to the updates CT software as well as automated Lesion Segmentation on LOGIQ E10 increases productivity through automation. AIRx and Critical Care Suite are awaiting FDA approval.

GE said that imaging generates some 90 percent of healthcare data but just 3 percent of that information gets analyzed and used by hospitals to improve operations or outcomes.

Changing that, and putting data to work, is a major step in the overarching industry movement toward precision health, otherwise known as precision medicine or even personalized health.

“Healthcare is on a journey to precision health -- delivering the right outcome, for the right patient, at exactly the right point of care,” Bigelow said. “To execute on that, our industry needs to focus on driving out cost, increasing access to care, increasing the quality of care, and improving the patient experience.”

GE Healthcare will be in booth 1240.