On Wednesday, Google introduced a new suite of healthcare-focused generative AI models designed to speed up workflows for clinicians and medical researchers.
The new offering, called MedLM, is built on Med-PaLM 2, Google’s medical AI system that harnesses the power of its large language models. There are currently two models within the MedLM suite, a large one and a medium one.
The large MedLM model is expected to be used for complex tasks that require extensive knowledge and in-depth analysis. It can be used to answer medical questions, as well as generate “some types of medical summarizations,” Google wrote in an email to MedCity News.
The medium model is better suited for real-time application and is more easily integrated into clinical workflows, the company wrote. It was designed to fine-tune and scale tasks across various specialties and subspecialties.
Google added that the medium model “will be best handled to summarize clinician-patient conversations and various day-to-day customer needs.”
MedLM is now available to Google Cloud customers in the U.S. and is in preview in certain other markets across the globe. Health systems began testing the MedLM models in April, when some Google Cloud customers were granted early access.
HCA Healthcare was one of these early users — the health system has been using the medium model to pilot a solution that helps physicians draft their patient notes at four emergency department hospital sites.
At these ED sites, HCA physicians are using Augmedix’s app on their phones to produce clinical notes from the conversations they have with patients. Augmedix’s app listens to the interaction and then combines its natural language processing capabilities with Google’s generative AI models to convert the data into medical notes that physicians review and finalize before transferring to the EHR.
By adding Google’s generative AI models to Augmedix’s app, the tool can do a much better job of understanding narrative speaking and breaking it down into a structured clinical note, according to Michael Schlosser, HCA’s senior vice president of care transformation and innovation.
He said he believes that Google’s AI has the potential to truly make life easier for clinicians, unlike the failed projects that have come before it.
“A lot of the early work in AI focused on training systems to do tasks like interpret medical images, discover clinical patterns in large datasets to find new clinical insights or treatment recommendations, or try and exceed human decision making for complex conditions. While these are worthy pursuits, they did not focus on addressing the friction points of what those delivering care day in and day out would see as the greatest opportunities in healthcare delivery,” Schlosser explained.
In addition to health systems, Google has also been testing MedLM with medical research companies. For example, preclinical research company BenchSci has integrated MedLM into its platform, which helps identify novel biomarkers for drug discovery.
Consulting firms have begun testing MedLM models as well. Accenture is using the AI models to uncover insights about how it can help health systems improve patients’ access, experience and outcomes, and Deloitte is developing a chatbot to help patients better understand which providers are covered by their insurance.
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