Dr. Daniel Yang, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies at Kaiser Permanente, stated in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he is not comfortable using AI to automate clinical decision making in diagnosis or treatment. According to Yang, the infrastructure for AI has not kept up with its development, with larger health systems such as Kaiser having the scale for AI implementation while smaller, rural health systems do not have the same advantages.
Kaiser Permanente is leveraging AI with a large implementation of an AI scribe and through a partnership with Abridge for generative AI clinical documentation. Abridge, which is now available at Kaiser’s 40 hospitals and over 600 medical offices in eight states and the District of Columbia, uses ambient listening technology to capture clinical notes, allowing physicians to spend more time with patients than on documentation.
The tool summarizes relevant medical information from natural conversations using AI and requires patient consent before doctors and clinicians enter the clinical notes into a patient’s medical record. After almost a year of testing and evaluation, Kaiser announced the system-wide implementation of Abridge, which complies with state and federal privacy laws and supports over 14 languages and 50 medical specialties.
Desiree Gandrup-Dupre, Senior Vice President of Care Delivery Technology Services at Kaiser Permanente, highlighted the successful implementation of Abridge, which allows doctors and clinicians to have more meaningful interactions with patients by focusing on patient care without the distraction of typing. The HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum is scheduled for September 5-6 in Boston, providing an opportunity to learn more about AI in healthcare.