Becker's Hospital Review

58 CIO / HEALTH IT Amazon Web Services to Beth Israel Deaconess: Tell us how AI can make your hospital more efficient By Mackenzie Garrity O nline retail giant Amazon continued its push into healthcare with a $2 million investment in Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to test artificial intelligence, according to Bloomberg. With the grant, the two will study how AI can simplify medical care. While there are hopes that AI tools will one day improve diagnosis and treatment, Beth Israel Deaconess will first focus on making day-to-day tasks, such as patient scheduling, more cost-effective. "ey're identifying the right problems where machine learning truly can help," Taha Kass- Hout, MD, senior leader for healthcare and AI at Amazon, told Bloomberg. e 673-bed medical center purchased Am- azon Web Service's cloud soware in 2016. Since then, the medical center and its net- work of hospitals in the Boston area have seen significant improvements with operating room efficiency and scheduling, according to the report. When Beth Israel Deaconess first began using the cloud services, the goal was to ensure data would be accessible if disasters struck. From there, Beth Israel Deaconess began ex- perimenting with the technology, testing if the cloud could automate manual work. To- day, the hospital uses the technology to book operating room times more precisely and predict when patients are more likely to miss appointments. With 41 operating rooms, Beth Israel Dea- coness has been able to expand its OR capac- ity and use daily. "If I look at a million patients like you, and discover we only need 25 minutes, wouldn't that be better for society? Because now the OR is the most expensive place in a hospital." John Halamka, MD, executive director of the Health Technology Exploration Center at Beth Israel Lahey Health, told Bloomberg. Physicians are also getting hands-on expe- rience using the advanced technology. With Amazon Web Services, Beth Israel Deaconess created an app that makes reserving OR times for a physician as easy as making a restaurant reservation. Explorations of AI uses in healthcare is booming. Equity funding for healthcare AI ventures topped $2.4 billion in 2018, a 78 per- cent increase compared to 2017, Bloomberg reported. "Providers are entering into the space where they need to be much more understanding of a consumer's needs," Gurpreet Singh, a U.S. health services leader at consultant PwC, told Bloomberg. "ose are all capabilities that a tech company provides." n Teladoc posts $418M in 2018 revenue, up 79% — 7 things to know By Mackenzie Garrity T eladoc Health published its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ending Dec. 31, 2018, with all signs pointing upward, including revenue, visits and subscriptions. "As virtual care becomes mainstream, we are uniquely po- sitioned across all of our channels as the only global com- prehensive virtual healthcare solution," said CEO Jason Gorevic. "We continue to extend our leadership position by delivering the highest quality care, successfully engag- ing customers, broadening our scope of services and ex- panding our global geographic reach." Seven things to know: 1. In the fourth quarter, Teladoc registered $78.34 million in U.S. subscription revenue, up 41 percent form the same quarter in 2017. Combining with international subscription revenue, Teladoc generated $102.7 million, up 57 percent year over year. 2. Teladoc's full year U.S. subscription revenue was $227.09 million, a 55 percent increase compared to 2017. Total subscription revenue for the year topped $350.78 million, reflecting a 78 percent uptick year over year. 3. The company's visit fee revenue also saw an increase in the fourth quarter to $20.04 million, a 70 percent increase year over year. Similarly, Teladoc's full year visit fee revenue jumped to $67.12 million, an 88 percent increase. In total, Teladoc's full year revenue was $417.91 million, a 79 per- cent increase year over year. 4. Teladoc reported a 16 percent increase in U.S. paid mem- berships to 22.8 million. Organic full-year and fourth-quar- ter paid memberships was 21.8 million. The number was adjusted for 3.6 million Aetna visit fee-only lives. 5. Total visits for the company were up 80 percent for the year at 2.64 million. For the fourth quarter, Teladoc's total visits were also up 86 percent at 861,000. 6. For the first quarter of 2019, Teladoc expects total reve- nue to range between $126 million and $129 million. The company anticipates total visits to sit between 950,000 and 1.05 million, and U.S. paid memberships to range between 26 million and 26.5 million. 7. By the end of 2019, Teladoc predicts total revenue will range between $535 million and $545 million. The compa- ny expects to register between 3.6 million and 3.9 million total visits. Total U.S. paid memberships are expected to range between 27 million and 29 million. n

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