Feature: 6 collaborations and launches announced at HLTH 2024
The annual HLTH healthcare innovation conference took place last week in Las Vegas, attracting thousands of companies from across the healthcare industry. These are highlights from several of the conference’s top announcements.
Amazon One Medical will collaborate with Cleveland Clinic to open a joint primary care office next year in the Cleveland area, with plans to open additional facilities over the next several years. According to a news release, the new office will offer same- and next-day appointments, onsite lab services, and virtual care support. Cleveland Clinic will invest funds to build the new One Medical offices, Healthcare Dive reported, noting that they will be clinically and digitally integrated with Cleveland Clinic. The new offices are intended to increase primary care offerings for Cleveland Clinic’s patients and create an additional referral stream for the health system’s specialists and hospitals, while giving One Medical members more access to specialty care. One Medical has similar arrangements with about 20 other health systems, according to Healthcare Dive.
The day after announcing the Cleveland Clinic collaboration, Amazon One Medical launched new AI tools that are integrated in its proprietary electronic health record system, 1Life. One Medical providers will be able to use AWS HealthScribe to take notes during patient visits, which they can then review, revise if necessary, and approve before submitting them to the patient’s EHR. Another tool will review and summarize patients’ records received from other providers, giving One Medical providers additional details regarding their patients’ health histories, including test results, screenings that have been conducted and medications that have been prescribed. Yet another new tool will assist One Medical care teams in responding promptly to patient messages. “Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize health care delivery, and we’re just at the beginning stages,” said Prakash Bulusu, chief technology officer at Amazon Health Services, in an article on Amazon’s website about the new AI tools.
Building on their previous collaborations, Blue Shield of California and Salesforce are partnering on a new endeavor that will use Salesforce Health Cloud to automate the prior authorization process. Their intent is to create a platform that will make the process “as simple as using a credit card,” delivering decisions on prior authorization requests “in near real-time,” Blue Shield said in a news release. Ultimately, physicians will be able to use the system to submit their requests — no fax machine necessary — and receive a response during the patient’s visit. Turnaround times for cases that require a clinical consultation will, at least theoretically, be shortened from several days to potentially hours, depending on the requesting physician’s availability. The companies plan to begin testing the platform solution early next year and do a limited rollout later in 2025.
Likewise, Microsoft and NVIDIA will expand their collaboration to support AI startups, with an initial focus on health care and life sciences companies. By bringing together NVIDIA’s Inception program and Microsoft for Startups, the collaboration is designed to give innovators greater access to accelerated computing by providing resources such as cloud credits, software for AI development, technical support, and mentorship. According to a Microsoft blog post, the programs have helped tens of thousands of startups. In a separate blog post, NVIDIA mentioned smart hospital startup Artisight as an example of a company that has used the two programs to scale its products. Artisight uses speech recognition models to enable automated patient check-ins at voice-enabled kiosks, as well as computer vision models that can alert nurses when patients are at risk of falling.
Through a new partnership, Zoom will use Suki’s AI engine to generate clinical notes and incorporate AI capabilities into Zoom’s Workplace for Clinicians platform. Clinicians can also use Suki’s AI assistant to find details in patients’ EHRs, and the tool can suggest codes based on information that has been dictated, Healthcare Dive reported. Providers can also use the documentation tool when using Zoom for in-person care. Nearly 140,000 health care institutions worldwide use Zoom’s telehealth platform, Zoom’s chief product officer, Smita Hashim, noted in a news release. The partnership with Zoom is Suki’s largest provider collaboration, according to Healthcare Dive.
GE HealthCare launched its own generative AI platform at the conference, called CareIntellect. Eventually, an entire suite of CareIntellect clinical and operational applications are planned, GE Healthcare said in a press release, though for now the focus is on oncology. The platform is designed so that health systems can integrate with CareIntellect one time and then be able to easily install new applications for different clinicians — like being able to open new apps on a smartphone or tablet with a single login is how Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, GE Healthcare’s chief science and technology officer, described it.
CareIntellect aggregates and organizes multi-modal patient data, and uses generative AI to summarize clinical notes and reports. Care teams can use the application at the point of care to quickly get up to speed on a patient’s treatment history, helping them to see how the disease is progressing and assisting them in determining potential next steps. The application can also assess a patient’s clinical trial eligibility, and track adherence to treatment protocols. UT Southwestern and Tampa General will be among the first to evaluate CareIntellect; GE Healthcare anticipates making the application more widely available next year.
Lastly, Google Cloud announced ahead of the conference that its Vertex AI Search for Healthcare platform — which helps providers and payers find information in health records and medical documents faster and more easily — is now available for general use. Google Cloud introduced Vertex at the HIMSS conference in March, with limited availability, although certain health systems, including Community Health Systems and Highmark Health, had earlier access to the AI search tool.
Health Care Rounds #173: Easing Cancer Treatment with Personalized Nutrition, with Dr. Erika Ebbel Angle
Fact: 80 percent of cancer patients face significant side effects throughout their treatment, potentially worsening outcomes and making a difficult journey even more challenging for patients fighting for their lives. In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Erika Ebbel Angle, CEO of Ixcela, to discuss her personalized approach to improving cancer patient treatment outcomes by prioritizing gut health, nutritional therapy, and lifestyle adjustments. Watch the episode on YouTube here or on your favorite podcast platform.
What else you need to know
Sanford Health and Marshfield Clinic Health System signed an affiliation agreement on Wednesday, taking the next step toward combining the two nonprofit organizations. They signed a nonbinding agreement in July indicating their intent to merge, creating a 56-hospital health system with approximately 56,000 employees, 4,300 providers and two health plans. Based in Sioux Falls, S.D., Sanford Health has 45 hospitals, 211 clinics, 2,900 physicians and advanced practice providers, and more than 160 senior living centers, serving more than 1.4 million patients and nearly 200,000 health plan members across 250,000 square miles, according to the announcement. Marshfield Clinic Health System’s 60 clinics, 11 hospitals and children’s hospital, and 1,400+ providers serve Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The combined entity would have annual revenue of approximately $10 billion, Fierce Healthcare reported. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory processes and closing conditions, is expected to close by the end of the year.
Renton, Wash.-based Providence is forming a joint venture with Compassus, a national provider of integrated home-based care services based in Brentwood, Tenn. The joint venture, called Providence at Home with Compassus, will offer home health, hospice, community-based palliative care, and private-duty caregiving services. Compassus will manage operations for the joint venture, according to the announcement, which will include 24 home health locations in Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington; 17 hospice and palliative care locations in the same four states plus Texas; and private-duty services in Southern California. Providence’s Covenant Health hospice program in Lubbock, Texas, will be rebranded as Covenant Health at Home with Compassus. The joint venture is subject to regulatory review.
Pittsburgh-based UPMC and GoHealth Urgent Care formed a joint venture to take over operations at an unspecified number of Optum-owned MedExpress Urgent Care locations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia, Becker’s Hospital Review reported, citing a UPMC spokesperson. According to MedExpress’ website, there are a total of 84 clinics in the three states. Next spring, UPMC Urgent Care and UPMC Express Care locations will become UPMC-GoHealth Urgent Care. GoHealth, which is owned by private equity firm TPG, has partnerships with 11 other health systems.
Walmart is now offering same-day prescription drug delivery along with its regular merchandise deliveries in six states and expects to make the service available in 49 states by the end of January (there are no Walmart pharmacies in North Dakota). Walmart said in the news release that it is the first retailer to integrate pharmacy and general merchandise in a single online order. All medications except controlled substances, drugs that need refrigeration, and Medicare Part B items are available for delivery through the service. Walmart touted that customers will soon be able to choose delivery options to receive their prescription within hours or as soon as in 30 minutes. Basic pharmacy delivery is free for Walmart+ members (though the membership costs $98 per year), whereas other members will pay a standard delivery fee of $9.95. Walmart said its footprint enables delivery to more than 86% of U.S. households.
Lifespan is now officially Brown University Health, The Brown Daily Herald reported. The name change for Rhode Island’s largest hospital system was announced in June, along with news of an expanded affiliation agreement between the health system and the university, which will remain independent organizations. Brown University is investing $150 million into the health system over the next seven years. After that, the health system will invest $15 million per year back to the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.
What we’re reading
The Perverse Consequences of Tuition-Free Medical School. The Atlantic, 10.21.24
How Generative AI Will Find a Place in the Pharma Industry Now and in the Years to Come. MedCity News, 10.20.24
PBM model is a ‘dead man walking.’ What comes next? Healthcare Dive, 10.23.24
