CareCloud this week announced that it's working with Google Cloud to help ambulatory practices and other small and medium healthcare providers make use of generative artificial intelligence to inform clinical decision making and boost operational efficiencies.

WHY IT MATTERS
CareCloud already uses Google Cloud to help power its own operational needs and enable generative AI and search functionality in its products. By using Google's offerings such as Vertex AI and Generative AI App Builder, the company is developing tools to bring physicians at smaller practices the same AI-enabled capabilities that are increasingly available at large hospitals and health systems.

The first CareCloud solution with generative AI developed for clinics and doctor's offices is expected to be made available in the next few months, the company says.

By working more closely with Google, CareCloud says its technologies will help physicians ask more complex clinical questions and gain deeper insights with evidence-based recommendations derived from analyzing datasets.

CareCloud says its generative AI tools will help medical practices surface relevant information – medications, labs, diagnoses and procedures based on their previous clinical history and current symptoms – to help clinicians devise plans of care.

Additionally, the software can help with operational and revenue cycle needs, according to CareCloud, showing the practice and the patient what costs would be paid by the insurance and what amount would be owed by the patient, based on the recommended diagnoses and patient insurance information.

The company cites Google Cloud's approach to data governance and privacy policies – ensuring healthcare customers retain control over their data while having the ability to customize AI models with transparency, ethics and efficacy – as key components of this new collaboration.

Google's secure data storage, HIPAA-eligible support for customers' own privacy controls, and processes enable a "responsible approach to generative AI" that gives providers the ability to "directly tune large language models and to review model responses for biased or unvalidated content, teaching the model to avoid inappropriate outputs," CareCloud says.

THE LARGER TREND
Adoption of generative AI, which holds enormous promise (and not a little risk) for transforming clinical and financial decision-making, has been momentous across healthcare in recent months as big health systems pilot new initiatives and electronic health record vendors and other IT companies integrate GPT and other large language model capabilities into their products.

Still, uptake of the leading-edge technology is still modest among smaller outpatient clinics, medical practices and independent docs.

"This collaboration will enable CareCloud's physicians to make highly informed decisions for optimal care outcomes," said Aashima Gupta, global director of healthcare strategy and solutions at Google Cloud. "CareCloud is combining the power of retrieval-augmented search and large language models to provide enterprise-specific context to the underlying LLMs. This will allow them to deliver more personalized and relevant search results to their users, which will ultimately improve their care experience."

ON THE RECORD
"Google Cloud and CareCloud's partnership will extend advanced technologies to a wider array of physicians," added Hadi Chaudhry, CareCloud's president and CEO, in a statement. "Generative AI, along with other advanced technologies, has greatly improved data analysis, pattern recognition, and accurate disease diagnoses. We're honored to collaborate with Google Cloud to enhance healthcare for all by leveraging their generative AI capabilities."

Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.