Global Courant 2023-05-15 11:00:59
For each patient visit, doctors spend an average of 16 minutes and 14 seconds using electronic health records to review records and take notes, according to a 2020 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Navina, a New York-based medical technology company, has developed an artificial intelligence tool to help doctors reclaim some of that time and make sure important data isn’t missed.
Also called Navina, the platform uses generative AI to transform the way data informs doctor-patient interaction, explains Ronen Lavi, the company’s Israel-based CEO.
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Lavi said the company’s main goal “in bringing AI to the primary point of care was to make patient-caregiver interactions more meaningful and effective by giving physicians an in-depth understanding of the patient in the short time they have.” give,” he told Fox News Digital in an interview.
The problem of overburdened providers is a widespread concern, Lavi said.
The main goal “in bringing AI to the point of primary care was to make the patient-care provider interaction more meaningful and effective by giving physicians a deep understanding of the patient in the short amount of time they have,” said Ronen Lavi, CEO from Navina, in an interview with Fox News Digital. (Gadi Ohad)
“They have tons of data from multiple sources and in different formats that they have to sift through,” he continued.
“It’s disorganized, non-chronological and fragmented.”
He added: “AI can process a large amount of data from different sources and condense complicated medical jargon into simpler and shorter terms.”
The second goal was for Navina to arm clinicians with insights that will shift care from reactive to proactive, Lavi said.
This could help detect disease risk factors faster, facilitate faster diagnoses and possibly even save lives.
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“Navina gives physicians a complete set of tools they need to clinically understand data at the point of care, before or during their patient visit,” he said.
The third goal in creating Navina was to help doctors better leverage the data at their fingertips to get financial credit from value-based programs like Medicare and Medicaid for the care they provide, the doctor added.
Create a ‘patient portrait’
At Central Virginia Family Physicians (CVFP), Navina has already helped physicians identify potentially life-threatening diseases, including diabetes with chronic complications, chronic kidney disease, and morbid obesity.
For each patient visit, doctors spend an average of 16 minutes and 14 seconds using electronic health records to review data and take notes, one study found. Navina, a medica tech company, is trying to address that. (iStock)
Dr. Jarrett Dodd, medical director at CVFP in Lynchburg, Virginia, was concerned about the risk of staff burnout and began looking for a tool that would allow his 52 physicians to quickly and efficiently browse the electronic health record.
After learning that the Innovation Lab at the American Academy of Family Physicians had identified Navina as an essential technology to help family physicians reduce burnout, he decided to give it a try.
“It gives me the information I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
“Navina actually sits on top of our electronic medical record, diving into individual patient data,” Dodd told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“It takes all the important information and creates a ‘patient portrait,’ where all that information is much more easily accessible to the clinician at the point of care.”
The tool collects data from multiple sources – including lab results, imaging scans and specialist notes – and presents it to the physician in a clear, concise manner.
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For example, if a patient has recently been to the hospital, Navina will give the discharge summary to the doctor so that he or she does not have to search for it.
For diabetic patients, Navina looked for their most recent hemoglobin A1C test to see their average blood sugar (glucose) levels, as well as urine tests that may indicate damage to the kidneys.
Navina (not pictured) is helping clinicians gain insights that will shift care from reactive to proactive, the company’s CEO said, which could help detect disease risk factors faster, make faster diagnoses and even save lives. (iStock)
Navina also goes beyond the patient record, reaching out to the exchange of health information and pulling information from outside the organization, Dodd explains.
“If a patient of mine sees an endocrinologist who isn’t part of our group, I can still access their test results through Navina,” he said. “It gives me information I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
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A doctor simply enters a keyword to search all results for certain conditions.
Certain diagnoses have higher “risk weights” than others.
“If I enter ‘pulmonary emphysema’ and a patient is identified on an imaging to have had emphysema, Navina will bring that up as a possible diagnosis,” he said.
“No one has coded it as a diagnosis yet, but it’s there, buried somewhere in a document.”
Navina has also helped CVFP clinicians do a better job with Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) coding, which helps estimate a patient’s future health care costs by assigning risk scores for certain medical conditions.
Certain diagnoses have higher “risk weights” than others, Dodd said.
The new medical technology also goes beyond the patient’s record, through the exchange of health information and the retrieval of information from outside the organization. (iStock)
“HCC coding is very important in the value-based care programs we are involved in, such as Medicare Advantage and Medicare savings programs,” he explained.
“When Medicare budgets for how much money they’re going to set aside to care for patients, they do it based on these risk coding,” Dodd continued.
“So to let Medicare know how sick our patients are and to demonstrate that we’re delivering quality care, we want to make sure we don’t miss a single diagnosis.”
“AI will help clinicians get through our day, do what we love to do and get rid of the things we don’t enjoy doing.”
The provider’s benefits also trickle down to patients, the doctor explained, by uncovering diagnoses that might otherwise have been overlooked.
“The doctors will approach the patient with all the information they need to map out what the patient’s risks are in the future, what they should pay attention to and how they can guide the patient preventively to maintain those risks.” as healthy as we can,” Dodd said.
‘Extensive validation and regulation’ needed
Lavi, Navina’s CEO, recognizes that, as with medical devices and treatments, there is a need for extensive validation and regulation to ensure these systems are reliable and accurate.
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“When it comes to the clinical context, reliability and reducing bias are hugely important,” he said.
“Furthermore, having worked closely with doctors over the past few years, I know that it is not an easy task to gain the trust of the doctor,” he added. “Solutions that don’t bring forward clinical evidence will never gain traction.”
Navina’s CEO recognizes that there is a need for extensive validation and regulation to ensure these systems are reliable and accurate. (iStock)
Dodd is aware of the general concerns about the use of AI in healthcare, but he does not foresee any risks with the Navina tool.
“It’s designed to look for what we’re asking to look for,” he said.
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The tool poses no privacy risks, he noted, because it can only access the individual patient’s information.
When it comes to the fact that some people fear AI will replace doctors, Dodd said he doesn’t believe in that fear.
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“I think it will be a phenomenal tool for physicians to apply to the benefit of our patients and in our own lives,” he said.
“AI will help clinicians get through our day, doing what we love to do and weeding out the things we don’t love doing so we don’t burn out and look for a new career by the time we turn 45.”
Melissa Rudy is a health editor and member of the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital.
