I Wonder How This System Is Being Evaluated? It Sounds Too Good To Be True!

 This appeared last week:

NIB unleashes AI-powered symptom checker to slash hospital wait times

EXCLUSIVE

By Jared Lynch

Technology Editor

Updated 1:12PM April 26, 2024, First published at 1:15PM April 25, 2024

Health insurer NIB has developed what it says is almost the equivalent of a triage nurse that can fit inside people’s pockets, thanks to artificial intelligence.

The ASX-listed company has partnered with Polish software company Infermedica, which uses AI to deliver “efficient, safe and reliable care” to patients. In NIB’s case, it is a “symptom checker” available via the health insurer’s app.

It works by asking a series of questions about a person’s symptoms, then directs them to the health service that best suits their needs, whether that is a GP, hospital emergency department or home monitoring.

NIB chief medical officer Rob McGrath said the AI-powered symptom checker worked in “many ways” like a triage nurse.

“It’s kind of a new approach on the traditional decision tree algorithms. It’s much more probabilistic modelling,” Dr McGrath said.

“There’s an inference engine which kind of changes the next question based on previous questions and risk factors and demographics and those types of things. And it’s much more nuanced to the individual. And it’s a little bit more dynamic, which is kind of the way doctors and nurses work inherently, so it tends to be shorter and more focused and post traditional kind of decision tree algorithms.”

The deployment of AI systems is aimed at helping combat spiralling health care costs, which become a hot topic of dispute in funding negotiations between hospitals and health insurers. Private hospital operators have been calling for a greater share of health insurer profits as they continue to deal with pandemic-era restrictions on elective surgeries – their main revenue driver.

It’s a problem shared with the public system, with NSW health department data revealing almost one in 10 patients are waiting up to 11 hours in emergency departments. To help reduce time blowouts, the NSW government is encouraging people with non-urgent issues to call the federal Healthdirect helpline instead of triple-0.

Dr McGrath said the AI ‘symptom checker’ has achieved accuracy of 97.2 per cent, which is “pretty high for these types of digital triage tools”.

“In fact, there was a study in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2020, which cited 36 online symptom checkers and this platform outperformed all of those for every measure. So it’s, really accurate and it just improves over time as more people use the platform.”

NIB quietly launched the symptom checker in February and said it has already been accessed more than 5000 times. Of those who completed an assessment, 64 per cent were referred to a GP, 15 per cent were directed to a hospital emergency department, and 21 per cent were advised to monitor their symptoms carefully from home.

“What we’d like to do is preserve some of those precious resources in emergency departments, in general practices, so they can focus on those patients that really need the support,” Dr McGrath said.

“We’re seeing some really good results in the early data. The hope is that it can create some efficiency and ideally a better experience for our members, so they’re not sitting in emergency departments waiting for hours on end.”

Dr McGrath said the health sector was “just at the beginning” of exploring AI. Pathology providers have been among the earliest adopters. Sonic Healthcare backed AI start-up Harrison.ai’s $129m Series B funding round in 2021, acquiring a 20 per cent interest in the group and forming a separate joint venture called franklin.ai.

It is using AI to support a “more effective and efficient diagnosis of patients in anatomic pathology and laboratory medicine by providing pathologists with ‘a second set of eyes’.”

Australia’s second biggest private hospital group Healthscope is also using AI to better gauge patients’ emotions and improve their quality of care. It partnered with Adoreboard – a tech company spun out of Queen’s University Belfast – to analyse patient surveys, eliminating the need to manually read each comment.

Healthscope completed a three-year study into the AI platform and said it could spark a 13.9 per cent in how patients rate their care and treatment. CSL, Cochlear, and ResMed are also. all exploring or using AI.

“Obviously, there needs to be some guardrails around the adoption of AI tools to support clinical care, but I think we’re just at the beginning of that journey,” Dr McGrath said.

“As resources become more and more strained, these tools can help create efficiency and triage as well as navigation through the system and supporting clinicians to be more efficient.”

The symptom checker is available to all NIB members in Australia and is aimed, in particular, at international students and workers, offering guidance on where and how to seek treatment while in Australia. NIB’s international inbound health insurance business covers over 200,000 international students and workers.

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/nib-unleashes-aipowered-symptom-checker-to-slash-hospital-wait-times/news-story/eab338602c971113a301d647b66b4a93

This is surely an innovation to keep a close eye on!

Reports from the field encouraged! Have you used to system?

David.