Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/977748
47 CIO / HEALTH IT Former Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt shares his vision for the medical visit of the future By Jessica Kim Cohen E ric Schmidt, PhD, former Google CEO and former executive chairman of Goo- gle's parent company Alphabet, laid out a roadmap for bringing artificial intelligence into patient care during an opening keynote presentation March 5 at the HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas. To set the stage for his vision, Dr. Schmidt de- scribed a typical medical visit, with one addi- tion — a microphone and speaker in the physi- cian's office, hooked up to a virtual assistant. He dubbed the imagined virtual assistant "Dr. Liz," in honor of Elizabeth Blackwell, MD, the first woman to receive a U.S. medical degree in 1849. "What does Dr. Liz do?" Dr. Schmidt asked the audience. "She listens to the conversation [between the physician and the patient], dis- ambiguates the voices, follows the consulta- tion, gives suggestions to the physician in his or her earpiece, transcribes the situation … and then she fills out and navigates the EHR." Although only an idea right now, Dr. Schmidt forecasted a technology similar to Dr. Liz will exist in hospitals within the next decade. "Everything I just described is buildable to- day or in the next few years," he said. "All it takes is for all of us, literally every person in this room, to figure out how to build it." Dr. Schmidt, who stepped down from his role as Alphabet's executive chairman earlier this year, continues his involvement with the com- pany as a technical advisor. His discussion on building a healthier future through AI tech- nologies marked his second time speaking at HIMSS, following a 2008 keynote given during his decade-long tenure as Google's CEO. Today, Dr. Schmidt sits on the board of trustees for Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and on the board of directors for Cambridge, Mass.- based Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. For Dr. Schmidt, the first step to building a product in the image of Dr. Liz is a shi to the cloud. He highlighted the cloud as a secure, HIPAA-compliant environment for hospitals to store patient data and host applications. "Run to the cloud. Don't stop, don't walk, don't think about it," he said. "I don't want you repeating infrastructure work that we're doing. I want you to focus on the innovation to achieve the vision that I outlined." Next, Dr. Schmidt encouraged health IT leaders to invest in clinical data warehouses to store in- formation from a variety of sources, including patient histories, medical images and remote monitoring solutions. With deep learning and reinforcement learning — two advanced types of AI — organizations will be able to analyze this data to draw out predictive insights. As an example, Dr. Schmidt shared findings from a recent study Google Research pub- lished in Nature Biomedical Engineering. For the study, the research team developed an AI algorithm that analyzed retinal fundus imag- es — photographs of the interior lining of the eye — to predict a patient's risk of experienc- ing a heart attack or stroke. Under Dr. Schmidt's vision, Dr. Liz would be able to access these insights to recommend personalized patient care plans. "I will tell you right upfront: is is really hard; it's really humbling; it's really complicat- ed," Dr. Schmidt said of the push to develop innovative soware. "But if we all work to- gether, we can really save lives at a scale that is unimaginable, because of the impact of these technologies." n Banner Health taps predictive analytics partner to drive early disease intervention By Jessica Kim Cohen P hoenix-based Banner Health partnered with pre- dictive analytics company BaseHealth to improve population health outcomes with disease risk management, BaseHealth announced Feb. 27. BaseHealth's platform uses data on health indicators to identify patients at high risk of developing more than 42 chronic and acute diseases. The predictive model also suggests clinical interventions to help patients potentially avoid developing these predis- posed conditions. "[BaseHealth's analytics] provides us with a more pro- active approach to healthcare by alerting us to the spe- cific factors driving disease risk, so we can plan and im- plement clinical and health management efforts," said Michael Parris, senior director for business intelligence and analytics at Banner Health. n Google exploring a blockchain solution for its cloud By Julie Spitzer G oogle is reportedly getting into the blockchain game, zeroing in on an application to support its cloud busi- ness, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. The Alphabet subsidiary is trying to build its own distributed digital ledger on its cloud platform that cloud customers can use for posting and verifying transactions. It is also planning to release a "white-label version" other companies can run on their own servers, according to Bloomberg. Blockchain is the backbone technology that powers bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Its decentralized nature promis- es extra layers of security and eliminates the need for a third party intermediary. Many companies and startups have been working to develop various blockchain applications across all industries, including healthcare. A Google spokesperson told CNBC the company had "indi- viduals in various teams exploring potential uses of block- chain but it's way too early for us to speculate about any pos- sible uses or plans." n