Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH), the largest healthcare system in New Jersey that encompasses 18 hospitals and is home to more than 36,000 employees, announced on Tuesday that it will be working with Google Cloud to develop and deploy generative AI technology into its care delivery models.

Specifically, the new initiative will expand on the technology giant’s existing work with HMH; the prominent healthcare organization already uses Chrome Enterprise and currently employs cloud infrastructure backed by Google.

The goals of the new venture will be threefold:

• Resolve clinician burdens and administrative inefficiencies: studies indicate that for every one hour that physicians spend providing patient care, they spend nearly 2 hours on electronic health record tasks. This is one reason why HMH is deploying generative AI, as it hopes to automate certain manual tasks and processes such as routine paperwork, workflow authorizations and other common bottlenecks. By doing so, physicians and other clinical staff can spend their time and expertise where it matters the most: providing care to patients.
• Enable clinical decision-making support: by employing new artificial intelligence tools, HMH hopes to usher in a new generation of analytics, advanced data driven insights, and novel methods to help support the clinician’s diagnostic process. Utilizing Google Cloud’s robust suite of tools, such as its Vertex AI platform and Generative AI Studio, large data sets can be analyzed to glean patterns and decipher certain diagnostic and prognostic indicators. HMH can leverage this analysis based on historical data and insights to help provide decision-making support during clinical encounters.
• Improve health literacy: HMH serves a wide patient demographic, with varying levels of health literacy and access to health information. The CDC explains that when “organizations or people create and give others health information that is too difficult for them to understand, [it creates] a health literacy problem.” Research indicates that preventing this problem and improving health literacy can mitigate nearly 1 million hospital visits and save $25 billion per year. HMH hopes to capture some of this potential impact using Google Cloud’s tools, specifically by building a solution to create communications and experiences that are customized for unique patient contexts and needs— that is, a solution that can help simplify complex healthcare subjects and ultimately, increase health literacy in the community.

Aashima Gupta, Global Director, Healthcare Strategy & Solutions for Google Cloud, discussed how Google Cloud’s goal is to provide a comprehensive arena for meaningful impact. This includes enabling a platform which is a full stack to ground, test and deploy both foundation models and vertical models; deploying this technology in a way that is safe and secure; and finally, empowering organizations (like HMH) to fine tune the technology and models to make it effective for their specific needs and use cases.

She also thoughtfully explained the powerful impact that AI can create, if developed in a safe and responsible manner: “When the microscope came along, it helped us see things that were not visible to the human eye. AI is now that giant microscope…it can help us uncover data insights and enable new modalities of pattern recognition. But, we need to be very thoughtful and responsible about how we deploy this technology. We have our own AI principals to guide this work and this serves as an ongoing commitment to our customers. Our goal is to continue to be bold and responsible in how we develop this…to make sure the technology is safe, is helpful to everyone, and helps advance the field while still respecting important safety and privacy principals.”

Indeed, the topics of responsible AI development and data privacy/security have become the forefront of conversations in the last few years, as the technology is rapidly progressing and companies are iterating new models quickly. In fact, technology experts, ethics pundits, and governmental bodies are eagerly trying to define AI strategy and what it means to develop the technology in a responsible and conscientious manner.

Kash Patel, EVP and Chief Digital Information Officer of Hackensack Meridian Health, further explained how this technology can truly help improve the physician and patient experience. Tactically, he explained that “when we deploy this, we think: how will patients and physicians engage with this? Will it be extra clicks for the physician, or are we truly reducing the burden for them? Are the patients engaging with this, and do they feel heard? We are trying to be very deliberate on how we deploy this and how users will really adopt this.”

This thoughtfulness, both with regards to responsible development and meaningful deployment, will be a crucial aspect of ensuring this partnership and partnerships like this in general succeed. After all, if done correctly, it has the potential to truly make a difference for millions of people.

By Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.