GE Healthcare and Partners HealthCare, both based in Boston, Massachusetts, are banding together on a 10-year long mission involving one of the hottest phenomena of today: artificial intelligence.
The project will be carried out through the Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Clinical Data Science.
Why such a lengthy initiative? Because GE Healthcare and Partners want to integrate AI throughout every part of the patient experience.
“We recognize that it’s going to take time to do every aspect of the patient journey,” GE Healthcare Chief Digital Officer Charles Koontz told MedCity in a phone interview.
By having such a broad focus, GE Healthcare and Partners hope to improve healthcare both for patients and for clinicians.
Initially, the collaboration will center on creating tools to enhance diagnostic imaging. The deep learning tools will be able to do everything from monitoring tumor growth and shrinkage to determining the likelihood of cancer on ultrasound. Not only will these technologies improve outcomes for patients, but they will also save clinicians time and enable them to deliver faster care.
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Eventually, the project will include AI tools for population health, pathology and genomics.
But that’s not all. The project also encompasses the development of an open platform that GE Healthcare, Partners and third-party developers can use to create, validate and share applications with hospitals globally.
Koontz illustrated the value of the platform with an example. “Imagine in Kenya where they have a small number of radiologists that may have not necessarily been trained at the level of a Partners radiologist,” he said. Through the platform, these radiologists can “apply the appropriate care and improve the outcome of an individual patient.”
The impetus for the collaboration stems from the bond between the two organizations. “We have a longstanding relationship with Partners, Mass General, Brigham and Women’s and Boston Children’s,” Koontz said. “We both had mutual interests in artificial intelligence in healthcare, and really for the benefit of the clinician.”
But the discussion around incorporating AI into the patient journey started about nine months ago, he added.
“There was this marriage in that we bring and have the devices that create the images. We know deeply the data behind the image,” Koontz said. “They bring the clinician who can curate the data.”
Fast forward 10 years. What does a successful version of this endeavor look like? “We will have a suite of applications in the marketplace that are impacting the quality of life and the quality of care literally globally,” Koontz said.
Photo: ANDRZEJ WOJCICKI, Getty Images
