Google Cloud has enhanced its Vertex AI Search product with generative AI capabilities to support the healthcare and life sciences industries, the company announced Monday morning.
Timed to coincide with the start of the HLTH 2023 conference in Las Vegas, the medically focused generative AI features allow for healthcare organizations to locate accurate clinical information and ask questions of the patient record.
Vertex AI Search already bases its searches on documents, public websites, and other data sources, but will now enable search on healthcare data through FHIR formats, clinical notes and medical data in electronic health records.
Google Cloud said the healthcare data search capabilities will integrate the Healthcare API and Healthcare Data Engine with Google Health’s search and intelligent summarization processes from the pilot product called Care Studio.
Effective immediately, Google Cloud customers can sign up to test the “medically-tuned” Vertex AI Search’s capabilities and general medical Q&A expertise.
The company said in a press release that the incorporation of generative AI into Vertex AI Search is intended to enhance scientific communications, streamline workflow processes and reduce the costly administrative burden that hampers clinical workers across a variety of healthcare organizations.
“Bringing Google-quality, gen AI search capabilities across an organization’s entire ecosystem, including EHRs, has the potential to dramatically improve efficiencies, provide clinical decision support, and increase the quality of care clinicians can give patients,” said Burak Gokturk, VP and general manager of Cloud AI and industry solutions for Google Cloud, in a statement. “Making Vertex AI Search more useful for healthcare and life science organizations is a priority for us because we know that having the right information and insights at the right time can make all the difference in health.”
Google Cloud added that it has continued working with several notable healthcare clients on bringing the latest advances in generative AI to their cloud and data operations, including Highmark Health, Hackensack Meridian Health as well as care.ai.
The updated functionality of Vertex AI Search is an indication that the popularity of generative AI among healthcare organizations shows little signs of slowing down. This also isn’t Google Cloud’s first push to make generative AI a key part of the healthcare data dynamic.
In early June, the company joined forces with the Mayo Clinic to use the Enterprise Search on Gen App Builder to improve clinical workflows, make obtaining information easier for clinicians and researchers as well as improve patient outcomes. As part of that announcement, Google Cloud said Enterprise Search on Gen App Builder is ready to support HIPAA compliance.
Additionally, medical marketing agencies such as Klick Health and Real Chemistry, both of which were named 2023 MM+M Awards honorees, have recently announced generative AI initiatives to support the healthcare and life sciences spaces.
To read a March 2024 article on Google Cloud bringing Vertex AI Search and updated MedLM features to HIMSS 2024, click here.
