Iodine Software, a developer of clinical documentation improvement tools, announced this week it will gain access to OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technologies, including the GPT-4 large language model, through an expanded collaboration.

WHY IT MATTERS

Iodine says it plans to integrate OpenAI's LLMs across AwareCDI products to improve prediction accuracy, streamline query processes and develop clinical automation tools that help ensure documentation accuracy and stem revenue cycle leakage, according to the announcement.

Improving coding efficiency and prediction analytics and accuracy can enable doctors to focus more on patients and help hospitals and health systems capture more earned revenue from the care they provide, the company said.

Iodine's dataset currently contains more than 27% of all U.S. inpatient data, according to the company, which believes OpenAI's tools will provide an unprecedented opportunity to transform how AwareCDI supports hospital functions.

The data set, according to the Iodine, is representative of the marketplace and an asset for training LLMs.

THE LARGER TREND

Over the last few years, Iodine Software has purchased Artifact Health and ChartWise Medical Systems, two other major CDI providers. AwareCDI was the 2022 and 2023 Best in KLAS for CDI products while ChartWise Medical Systems received the 2021 Best in KLAS accolade.

Artifact Health was a pioneer in creating a mobile-based physician query streamlining platform that automatically tracked and reported query activity in dashboards. Query tracking in CDI can help hospitals improve speed and efficiency. 

"If you can’t get the query to the provider in a way that it is easy for them to answer and document in your medical record, it doesn’t matter how good your clinical documentation improvement software is," Laura Berberich, director of health information management, coding and clinical documentation improvement at Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall, told Healthcare IT News.

In 2019, Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall moved from an 84% query response rate to 100% in the first month of query tracking.

Many healthcare IT companies are exploring early uses of ChatGPT since it exploded in general software development in November, from early adoption by TalkDesk's healthcare contact center agents to streamlining how clinical information is entered into electronic health records.

"Healthcare has been trying to automate self-service in those sorts of areas for years, and generative AI gives us an opportunity to deliver more complex and relevant answers for patients, and free up staff time for more complex interactions – because the conversations on the other end of the spectrum in healthcare are highly complex and require a lot of knowledge and empathy from staff," said Patty Hayward, general manager of healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk.

ON THE RECORD

"We are optimistic about its potential impact, yet cautious due to the significant impact on patient care, physician trust and patient reimbursements," said William Chan, Iodine CEO and cofounder, in a statement announcing this week's OpenAI news. "Aware of its limitations, such as data hallucinations, we are committed to a responsible approach, ensuring we balance progress with prudence."

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.