While technology innovators look to artificial intelligence to improve patient outcomes and experiences, they are also finding ways to cut the red tape that generally slows healthcare down, according to many announcements this week. 

Northwestern Medicine, the Nevada Health Link, Cohere Health and Kyruus Health are partnering with Dell Technologies, Google Cloud Marketplace and others to offer providers and payers ways to tackle the daily challenges that delay care approvals and prevent patients from seeking care and enrolling in health plans.

Dell and Northwestern drive AI further into hospital workflows

Dell Technologies and Northwestern Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine aim to develop and integrate generative multimodal large language models (mLLMs) into hospital workflows to improve patient care and reduce physician burnout, according to an announcement Friday from Dell. 

While the collaboration will look to apply mLLMs across multiple domains, from looking at still images, video and waveforms to predictive modeling for electronic health records, the partners will further develop and evaluate a generative model to aid in interpreting chest X-rays.

Northwestern Medicine previously worked with Dell's AI Innovation Lab to train a multimodal LLM that produced draft X-ray reports that could aid physician decision-making.

In October, Northwestern researchers published a JAMA paper on their study that looked at how generative AI could improve the timeliness of interpretation of chest radiography by emergency department physicians. They ran 500 emergency department chest radiographs from 500 unique patients through an AI model, finding that it produced reports of similar clinical accuracy and textual quality to radiology reports while providing higher textual quality than teleradiology reports. 

"Technology such as AI has the power to speed innovation that advances human progress. Healthcare is a prime example of where technology can make an impact and help save lives," Jeff Boudreau, chief AI officer at Dell Technologies, said in the statement. 

"In healthcare, there is little to no margin for error and a tremendous amount of good that can be done," Dr. Mozziyar Etemadi, Northwestern Medicine's medical director of advanced technologies, added. "When we think about what AI can do, we don't just see the technology itself; we see the many patients and lives it will positively impact."

Nevada Health Link launches AI virtual agent 

Nevada Health Link announced on Wednesday that it successfully integrated AI into its state-based marketplace platform to help augment its call center and provide more service during peak demands.

The first-of-its-kind virtual agent, facilitated through collaboration with GetInsured, uses natural language prompts to answer common questions and requests 24/7, including password resets, finding enrollment assistance and more.

During open enrollment for the 2024 plan year, the AI agent handled 14.5% of the call center's demand, approximately 2,700 calls. Also, it transferred another 9.6% of calls to affiliated brokers or Nevada Medicaid – about 2,100 additional calls. 

According to the health information exchange, the virtual agent enabled the HIE's frontline workers to focus on more complex tasks while reducing the time a customer had to wait for specialized services.

"Given the prevalence of gig workers and individuals with unconventional work schedules in Nevada's diverse workforce, the integration of AI into the Nevada Health Link platform ensures that essential support is available round-the-clock," Russell Cook, Nevada Health Link's executive director, said in a statement.

It is the first exchange marketplace to have earned the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service's approval for an AI-based virtual customer service agent that ensures privacy and security requirements are met, according to the HIE, and its use contributed to the second-largest enrollment in the state's marketplace history.

The initiative showcases the "pursuit of excellence in leveraging technology to meet the evolving needs of Nevadans," added Tim Galluzi, state chief information officer. 

Cohere Health advances 'last mile' with AI integration in Epic

To advance clinical intelligence and speed up prior authorization requests, a new AI-driven prior authorization integration in Epic will enable providers nationwide to submit directly in their EHR workflows, Cohere Health announced on April 3. 

"Our integration with Payer Platform is a huge step towards a truly end-to-end touchless authorization process," Dr. Brian Covino, Cohere Health's chief medical officer, said in a statement.

"Initiating authorization requests directly from EHRs is the 'last mile' towards full automation and greatly reduces provider staff time on authorizations by automating the initiation of a request."

The company noted that it processes 5.5 million prior authorization requests annually, using predictive models and proactive decision support to accelerate care approvals and reduce administrative expenses.

Kyruus Health scales with Google Cloud

Kyruus Connect for Payers, which provides data and compliance services to 100 national and regional health plan brands and streamlines patient engagement opportunities, is now available through the Google Cloud Marketplace, according to an April 3 announcement.

The company said it offers cost-transparency tools that guide plan participants to care choices, encouraging their willingness to seek care. Access through the cloud marketplace can help health plans quickly deploy, manage and grow their cost transparency and patient engagement tools.

"Collaborating with Google Cloud allows us to further scale our care access platform, reaching a broader array of health plans while streamlining processes," Gail Airasian, Kyruus Health's chief strategy officer, said in a statement.

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