Leading tech firms, including Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Alphabet Inc's Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), are preparing to showcase their artificial intelligence (AI) tools at the forthcoming HLTH healthcare technology conference in Las Vegas.
What Happened: The conference, set to kick off on Sunday, is anticipated to draw over 12,000 industry leaders, CNBC reported. The tech giants aim to demonstrate how their AI solutions can help reduce the administrative load on healthcare professionals, thereby freeing up crucial time.
Healthcare workers are currently grappling with excessive documentation, a major factor leading to industry burnout and a predicted shortfall of 100,000 healthcare workers by 2028, according to consulting firm Mercer. Tech companies are confident that their AI tools can help mitigate this problem.
Google, on Thursday, announced the general availability of Vertex AI Search for Healthcare, a tool that enables developers to build applications to assist doctors in swiftly searching for information across various medical records. Google also published survey results showing that clinicians spend nearly 28 hours a week on administrative tasks, with 80% of providers asserting that this work takes away from patient care time.
Why It Matters: The healthcare industry has been increasingly turning to AI to address its challenges. Google, for example, has been using AI to detect illnesses through sound, such as coughs and sneezes, with its Health Acoustic Representations (HeAR) model.
Earlier this month, Microsoft unveiled its suite of tools designed to lessen clinicians' administrative workload. These tools, most of which are still under development, include medical imaging models, a healthcare agent service, and an automated documentation solution for nurses.
AI scribe tools such as DAX Copilot, provided by Microsoft's subsidiary Nuance Communications, have seen a surge in popularity this year. These tools employ AI to transcribe doctors' interactions with patients into clinical notes and summaries, reducing the need for doctors to manually record these notes.
Nvidia is also gearing up to address the workload of doctors and nurses at the HLTH conference. Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, will give a keynote on Monday detailing how generative AI can assist healthcare professionals in devoting more time to patient care.
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