Category Archives: Healthcare IT

Rise of AI in Health Insurance: Redefining Premiums and Streamlining Claims

Rise of AI in Health Insurance: Redefining Premiums and Streamlining Claims

AI/ML, Healthcare ITMindfire Solutions

Introduction

Healthcare is on the verge of a major revolution driven by artificial intelligence (AI). This powerful technology is poised to significantly impact how health insurance functions, from setting fairer premiums to revolutionizing the often-frustrating claims process.

Revolutionizing Risk Assessment and Premiums with AI

Traditionally, health insurance premiums have been based on broad demographics like age, location, and occupation. However, this one-size-fits-all approach often falls short, leading to situations where healthy individuals pay more than necessary. AI offers a groundbreaking solution: personalized premiums based on individual health profiles.

Here’s how AI is transforming risk assessment and premiums:

  • Predictive Analytics:
    • AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of medical data, including medical history, lab results, and even genetic predispositions, to predict the likelihood of developing specific health conditions.
    • This allows insurers to create a more accurate risk profile for each individual, leading to fairer and more personalized premiums.
  • Precision Underwriting:
    • With the help of AI, insurers can move beyond demographics and incorporate a wider range of factors into their risk assessments.
    • This could include factors like lifestyle habits (smoking, exercise), social determinants of health (income, zip code), and even pharmacy data to paint a more complete picture of an applicant’s health.
    • This precision underwriting allows for a more accurate assessment of risk, ultimately leading to fairer premiums for everyone.

The Benefits of Personalized Premiums

The shift towards personalized premiums powered by AI offers a multitude of benefits for both insurers and patients:

  • Fairer Pricing for Healthy Individuals:
    • With a more accurate understanding of individual health risks, AI ensures that healthy individuals don’t pay inflated premiums.
    • This can incentivize healthy habits and preventive care, ultimately benefiting everyone.
  • Reduced Costs for Insurers:
    • By accurately identifying high-risk individuals, insurers can develop targeted preventive care programs, potentially reducing future healthcare costs.
  • Promoting Preventive Care:
    • Lower premiums for healthy individuals can incentivize taking a more proactive approach to health.
    • This could involve increased participation in preventive screenings and wellness programs, leading to earlier detection and management of chronic conditions.

AI Streamlines the Claims Process, Benefiting Patients and Insurers

The claims process can be a tedious and time-consuming ordeal for both patients and insurers. Here’s where AI steps in, offering a faster, more efficient solution:

  • Automating Repetitive Tasks:
    • AI can handle reviewing claims by automating tasks like data entry, verification, and eligibility checks.
    • This frees up human adjusters to focus on complex cases requiring human judgment and expertise.
  • Fraud Detection:
    • Fraudulent claims cost insurers billions of dollars annually.
    • AI can analyze historical data and identify patterns that suggest fraudulent activity.
    • This allows for quicker identification and investigation of potential fraud, saving insurers money and protecting honest patients.
  • Faster Claim Settlements:
    • With AI automating repetitive tasks and identifying potential issues upfront, claims processing becomes significantly faster.
    • This allows patients to receive reimbursements quicker, improving their overall experience.

Beyond Efficiency: AI Enhances Customer Service

AI isn’t just about automating tasks; it can also significantly enhance customer service in the health insurance sector:

  • AI-powered Chatbots:
    • AI-powered chatbots can handle routine inquiries about policy details, claim status, and billing questions, freeing up customer service representatives for more complex issues.
    • This provides patients with a convenient and efficient way to access information.
  • Personalized Recommendations:
    • AI can analyze patient data and health history to recommend personalized wellness programs or preventative care options.
    • This proactive approach can empower patients to take charge of their health and improve their overall well-being.

Conclusion

AI in health insurance is transforming the industry by personalizing premiums based on individual health data, ensuring fairness for all policyholders. Healthy individuals won’t subsidize high-risk patients, potentially leading to healthier lifestyles. AI also streamlines the claims process by automating tasks and detecting fraud, saving both patients and insurers time and money. Additionally, AI-powered chatbots provide convenient access to information and personalized recommendations.

However, responsible use is key. AI models need to be unbiased and operate under human oversight. Transparency is crucial to build patient trust.

By embracing AI responsibly, we can create a more efficient, affordable, and patient-centered healthcare system. This future promises personalized plans, faster claims, and empowered patients actively managing their health. As AI evolves, even more innovative applications await, shaping a brighter health insurance landscape.

The rise of AI in health insurance is revolutionizing the industry, from redefining premiums to streamlining claims. With innovative solutions like Mindfire’s AI development services, insurers can harness real-time health data from wearables to personalize premiums, rewarding healthier lifestyles. Our expertise also enables automation in claims processing, ensuring faster approvals, fraud detection, and seamless customer experiences. As AI continues to transform health insurance, Mindfire Solutions is at the forefront, delivering intelligent, tailored solutions that make the industry smarter, fairer, and more efficient.

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drug management using rpa

Drug Management and Inventory Optimization using RPA

Healthcare IT, RPAMindfire Solutions

Introduction

Drug management and inventory optimization are essential components of healthcare services that focus on efficiently handling pharmaceutical products, medications, and supplies within healthcare facilities.

What is Drug management?

Drug management refers to the systematic and organized approach of overseeing pharmaceutical products throughout their lifecycle within a healthcare setting. This encompasses various aspects of handling medications, including procurement, storage, distribution, administration, and disposal. Key components of drug management include:

  • Procurement: Acquiring pharmaceutical products from suppliers, wholesalers, or manufacturers while considering factors such as pricing, quality, and availability.
  • Storage and Inventory Control: Proper storage conditions to maintain medication efficacy, inventory tracking to prevent stockouts or overstocking, and managing expiration dates to minimize wastage.
  • Distribution: Ensuring timely and accurate delivery of medications to various departments, units, or clinics within the healthcare facility.
  • Administration and Patient Safety: Ensuring appropriate medication administration practices, dosage accuracy, patient education on medication use, and monitoring for adverse reactions or interactions.
  • Disposal and Waste Management: Proper disposal of expired, unused, or hazardous medications in compliance with environmental regulations and safety protocols.

Importance of Inventory Optimization in Healthcare

Inventory optimization in healthcare involves the strategic management of pharmaceutical inventory levels to achieve optimal balance between supply and demand, thereby improving operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The goal is to ensure that healthcare facilities have the right quantity of medications and supplies available at the right time and place, without excessive stockpiling or shortages.Key aspects of inventory optimization include:

  • Demand Forecasting: Predicting future demand for medications based on historical usage patterns, patient demographics, treatment protocols, and seasonal variations.
  • Stock Level Management: Setting appropriate inventory levels (minimum, maximum, reorder points) for different medications to prevent stock-outs while avoiding excessive holding costs.
  • Supplier and Vendor Management: Establishing efficient relationships with pharmaceutical suppliers, managing contracts, negotiating pricing terms, and ensuring timely deliveries.
  • Technology and Automation: Leveraging technology such as inventory management systems, barcoding, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), and automation tools (including RPA) to streamline inventory processes, reduce manual errors, and improve accuracy in tracking and replenishing stock.
  • Cost Control and Waste Reduction: Optimizing inventory levels can lead to reduced carrying costs, minimized wastage due to expired or unused medications, and better utilization of resources.

Challenges and their Impact on the Service

Managing drug inventory in healthcare facilities comes with several challenges that can impact patient outcomes and operational efficiency. Let’s discuss each challenge and its potential impact:

  1. Overstocking: Having too much medication ties up capital, risks expiration, and complicates inventory management.
  2. Stockouts: Insufficient medication supply leads to treatment delays, patient dissatisfaction, and potential health risks.
  3. Expiration Issues: Expired medications result in wastage, financial losses, and compliance concerns with regulatory standards.
  4. Manual Data Entry Errors: Mistakes in inventory tracking and recording can lead to inaccurate stock levels and medication errors.

These challenges impact patient outcomes by causing treatment delays, compromising patient safety, and affecting operational efficiency by wasting resources and increasing workload for healthcare staff.

Robotic Process Automation: Role and its Significance

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that uses software robots or “bots” to automate repetitive and rule-based tasks within business processes. These bots are designed to mimic human actions, interact with digital systems, and perform tasks such as data entry, data extraction, report generation, and more without human intervention.

  1. Automation of Repetitive Tasks: RPA automates routine, repetitive tasks that are rule-based and involve structured data. This frees up human resources from mundane activities, allowing them to focus on more value-added tasks that require creativity, critical thinking, and decision-making.
  2. Improved Accuracy and Compliance: RPA bots execute tasks with high accuracy and consistency, reducing errors associated with manual data entry and processing. This leads to improved data quality, better compliance with regulations, and reduced risks in operations.
  3. Enhanced Operational Efficiency: By streamlining workflows and reducing processing times, RPA enhances operational efficiency within organizations. Tasks that typically take hours or days to complete manually can be accomplished in minutes or seconds with RPA, leading to faster turnaround times and improved productivity.
  4. Cost Savings: RPA helps organizations save costs by reducing the need for human labor in repetitive tasks. It optimizes resource utilization, eliminates the need for overtime work in certain areas, and reduces the potential for errors that can be costly to rectify.
  5. Scalability and Flexibility: RPA solutions are scalable and can handle a wide range of tasks across different departments and functions. They can adapt to changing business needs and can be deployed incrementally or across various business units as required.
  6. Integration with Existing Systems: RPA can integrate seamlessly with existing IT infrastructure and applications, including legacy systems, ERPs, CRMs, and databases. This integration allows for data exchange, automated data processing, and coordinated actions across multiple systems.

Overall, RPA plays a crucial role in modernizing business processes, driving efficiency gains, reducing operational costs, and enabling organizations to focus on strategic initiatives while improving overall productivity and customer satisfaction.

How can RPA help ?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can significantly improve drug management and inventory optimization in healthcare settings by automating repetitive tasks, reducing errors, and enhancing operational efficiency. Here are scenarios illustrating how RPA can address common challenges:

  • Automated Inventory Monitoring:

A hospital needs to monitor medication inventory levels across multiple units and storage locations to prevent stockouts and overstocking.

RPA Solution: RPA bots can be programmed to regularly check inventory levels in real-time from the inventory management system. They can generate alerts for low-stock items, initiate reordering processes based on predefined thresholds, and update inventory records automatically.

  • Expiration Date Tracking:

Healthcare facilities need to manage medication expiration dates to minimize waste and ensure patient safety.

RPA Solution: RPA bots can scan expiration dates from inventory databases and flag medications nearing expiry. They can generate reports for pharmacy staff to prioritize usage of expiring medications or initiate disposal processes according to regulatory guidelines.

  • Automated Data Entry and Reconciliation:

Manual data entry errors lead to discrepancies in inventory records and pose risks during medication dispensing.

RPA Solution: RPA bots can automate data entry tasks by extracting information from purchase orders, invoices, and delivery receipts. They can reconcile incoming shipments with orders, update inventory databases accurately, and reduce errors associated with manual data handling.

  • Optimized Procurement and Ordering:

Healthcare organizations face challenges in managing medication procurement, vendor communications, and order processing efficiently.

RPA Solution: RPA can streamline procurement workflows by automating order placement, invoice processing, and vendor communication. Bots can compare prices from different suppliers, track delivery schedules, and ensure timely replenishment of medications, reducing procurement cycle times and costs.

  • Integration with Electronic Health Records (EHR):

Pharmacists need to verify medication orders, dosage instructions, and patient information from EHR systems accurately.

RPA Solution: RPA bots can integrate with EHR systems to extract relevant patient and medication data. They can assist pharmacists in medication reconciliation, dosage verification, and flagging potential drug interactions, enhancing patient safety and reducing manual verification efforts.

Conclusion

In summary, our recent project in healthcare claims processing highlights the pivotal role of RPA alongside advanced AI and cloud technologies. This successful implementation underscores the potential for transformative automation solutions in optimizing operational workflows within the healthcare sector. Reach out to explore how similar innovative strategies can drive efficiency and productivity in your organization.

Mindfire offers specialized RPA services, catering to the unique needs of each industry. Our RPA helps businesses automate repetitive tasks, improve operational efficiency, and reduce errors by implementing custom RPA solutions tailored to their workflows. In healthcare software development, we focus on creating robust, compliant, and user-friendly solutions that enhance patient care, streamline administrative processes, and ensure data security. By leveraging our expertise in both domains, Mindfire empowers organizations to achieve greater productivity and innovation in their respective fields.

 

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The Integration of mHealth into Clinical Practice: Opportunities and Barriers

Healthcare Application Development, Healthcare IT, Mobile App Development, Mobile App Development, Software OutsourcingMindfire Solutions

Mobile health or mHealth solutions are transforming the healthcare industry. From mobile applications that allow for remote monitoring and diagnosis to wearable devices that provide real-time data about a patient’s vital signs, mHealth is changing how we think about healthcare delivery.

According to recent research, the revenue of the global mHealth solutions market is estimated to be $119.5 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27% to reach a value of $395 billion by 2028.

While there are many potential benefits associated with integrating mHealth into clinical practice, there are also numerous barriers that must be overcome in order for these technologies to reach their full potential.

In this blog post, we will explore both the opportunities and challenges associated with incorporating mHealth into clinical practice.

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Opportunities 

Improved Patient Engagement: mHealth solutions can help patients become more engaged in their own healthcare by providing them with real-time access to their health data. Patients can use these tools to monitor their vital signs, track their medication adherence, and access educational resources. This can lead to improved health outcomes and reduced healthcare costs.

Remote Monitoring: With mHealth solutions, healthcare providers can make medical care more accessible for patients. The technology can be used to remotely monitor patients who have chronic conditions or are recovering from surgery, reducing the need for in-person visits and enabling healthcare professionals to intervene early if there are any concerns.

Enhanced Data Collection: mHealth solutions can enable healthcare professionals to collect more comprehensive data about patients’ health status. Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are one example of how mHealth can provide data-driven care. CDSSs use predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms to interpret data from multiple sources and offer meaningful insights and advice, allowing healthcare providers to be more efficient in their patient care. This data can be used to identify trends and patterns and to develop more personalized treatment plans.

Increased Efficiency: Healthcare professionals can streamline clinical workflows and reduce administrative burdens by incorporating mHealth solutions, which can enable them to focus more on patient care. For example, mHealth solutions can automate appointment scheduling, provide electronic prescription management, and reduce paperwork.

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Barriers

Privacy and Security Concerns:  The collection and use of patient health data by mHealth solutions raise significant privacy and security concerns. Healthcare providers must ensure that patient data is stored securely and in compliance with privacy regulations.

Lack of Standardization: The lack of industry standards for mHealth systems can make it difficult for healthcare providers to integrate various different technologies into their existing workflows. Without standardized data formats and protocols, it can be challenging to ensure interoperability and data accuracy.

Technical Challenges: The integration of mHealth solutions into clinical practice requires technical expertise and infrastructure. Healthcare providers need to have the necessary hardware, software, and network capabilities in order to effectively use mHealth solutions.

Resistance to Change: The integration of mHealth solutions into clinical practice requires a cultural shift. Healthcare professionals will have to embrace new ways of working. This can be challenging for healthcare organizations, particularly those already burdened with the challenges of less-than-adequate manpower and lengthy decision-making procedures.

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Overcoming Barriers

Invest in Infrastructure: Healthcare organizations should invest in the necessary infrastructure to support the integration of mHealth solutions. This may include upgrading hardware and software systems, investing in secure network capabilities, and training staff on how to use new technologies.

Develop Standards: Establishing and adhering to standards for mHealth systems can help to ensure data accuracy and compliance with privacy regulations. Healthcare organizations should look to develop standard protocols and data formats that are compatible with their existing systems. This process can involve working with government agencies and other stakeholders to establish guidelines.

Educate Healthcare Professionals: Encouraging healthcare professionals to embrace new technologies can be the key to the successful integration of mHealth solutions. Educating them on the benefits of leveraging mHealth solutions in clinical practices, and training them on using it effectively is essential.

Collaborate with Patients: Establishing open communication with patients and involving them in the process of integrating mHealth solutions into clinical practice can help to build trust and increase patient engagement. Encourage healthcare professionals to engage patients in discussions about their care.
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Conclusion

The integration of mHealth into clinical practice offers many opportunities for improving healthcare delivery and outcomes. However, there are also significant barriers that must be overcome in order to make the most of these benefits. As technology continues to advance, it is important that healthcare organizations remain agile and adaptive, ready to embrace new tools and services that can improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.

At Mindfire Solutions, we understand the challenges associated with integrating mHealth solutions into clinical practices. Our team of experienced developers is committed to helping healthcare organizations navigate the complexity and uncertainty of introducing new technologies in their workflows. We are dedicated to developing robust, secure, and intuitive mHealth solutions that meet the needs of your healthcare organization.

Take a peek at our expertise to know how we can assist you to take your services to the next level.

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The Impact of Telemedicine on Healthcare Delivery

Healthcare Application Development, Healthcare IT, IT OutsourcingMindfire Solutions

HealthIT Solutions

Telemedicine is a rapidly growing field transforming how healthcare is delivered. It involves using telecommunication and information technologies to provide medical services and expertise remotely. Telemedicine is not a new concept, but its widespread adoption was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a report from a reputed source , despite the ongoing global geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainties, the global telemedicine services industry is anticipated to expand from $103.06 billion in 2022 to $262.33 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 18.8%.

The above figures suggest that telemedicine is becoming more widely accepted, with insurance companies and government-regulated healthcare programs increasingly including telemedicine services in their coverage plans. As a result, governments are urging companies to modify their policies to incorporate telemedicine services into their schemes, recognizing the growing importance of this method of healthcare delivery.

The underlying concepts

The telemedicine services market encompasses a range of remote medical services, including teleneuropsychology, telenursing, telepharmacy, and telerehabilitation services, along with any related goods sold by the service provider. It leverages video chat, phone calls, and text messaging to provide medical services covering physical examinations and health concerns consultations.

The telemedicine concept is already followed extensively in economically-strong markets, including Asia-Pacific, North America, South America, the Middle East, Africa, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe. In 2022, North America emerged as the largest market for telemedicine services, with the Asia Pacific region coming in second.

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Types of Telemedicine Services

There are various telemedicine services, including web-based, cloud-based, and on-premises.

  • Web-based telemedicine services typically involve using a web browser to access an online platform for virtual consultations with healthcare providers.
  • Cloud-based telemedicine services, on the other hand, leverage remote servers to store and manage patient data, offer remote consultations, and provide access to various medical tools and resources.
  • On-premises telemedicine services refer to the delivery of remote healthcare services by healthcare providers using telecommunication and information technologies within the physical premises of a healthcare facility like a hospital or clinic.

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Advantages of Telemedicine: Improving Healthcare Delivery

Telemedicine offers several advantages that can help healthcare providers improve healthcare delivery. Here are some of the key advantages

  • Increased access to healthcare

Telemedicine allows healthcare providers to deliver medical services to patients who might otherwise have difficulties accessing care, such as those living in rural or remote areas or patients with mobility issues or transportation challenges..

  • Improved patient outcomes

Telemedicine can facilitate early detection of health conditions by providing timely access to medical care. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role in providing personalized monitoring of chronic conditions and improving patient outcomes by enabling more data-driven care. AI can help in identifying patterns and predicting health issues before it intensifies, which can lead to early detection and treatment.

  • Cost savings

Telemedicine can help reduce healthcare costs by reducing the need for in-person visits, avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations, and improving medication adherence and disease management.

  • Convenience and flexibility

Patients can access medical care through telemedicine from the convenience of their own homes or workplaces, saving them time on travel and reducing the need to take time off work or school.

  • Increased efficiency

Telemedicine can help healthcare providers increase efficiency by enabling them to see more patients in less time, reducing wait times, and streamlining administrative tasks like medical record management and appointment scheduling.

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Limitations of Telemedicine: Challenges to Overcome

Healthcare providers considering telemedicine services should be aware of the potential limitations and challenges that come with it. Here are some of the key challenges to overcome:

  • Technical Issues

One of the biggest challenges of telemedicine is technical issues such as poor internet connection, equipment failure, and software malfunctions. These issues can result in disrupted communication and delays in medical care, potentially compromising patient safety.

  • Privacy and Security Concerns

Telemedicine raises privacy and security concerns, particularly regarding the storage and transmission of patient health information. Healthcare providers must ensure that telemedicine platforms follow the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other regulations to protect patient privacy.

  • Limited Physical Examination

Telemedicine may not allow healthcare providers to conduct a comprehensive physical examination of patients, which can limit their ability to diagnose and treat certain conditions. For instance, some conditions may require a hands-on approach to diagnose and treat effectively.

  • Lack of Patient-Provider Relationship

Telemedicine may not provide the same personal connection between patients and healthcare providers as in-person visits. This can limit the ability of healthcare providers to establish a strong patient-provider relationship, which is crucial for effective medical care.

  • Inability to Handle Emergencies

Telemedicine may not be able to handle medical emergencies such as cardiac arrest or severe trauma, which require immediate and specialized medical attention. Patients in need of emergency medical care must seek medical attention in person.

  • Unequal Access to Technology

Unequal access to technology can limit the use of telemedicine, particularly among low-income and rural populations. Lack of access to the internet and appropriate devices can create disparities in healthcare access.

  • Licensing and Reimbursement

Telemedicine is subject to licensing and reimbursement regulations, which can vary by state and insurance provider. This can create challenges for healthcare providers in delivering telemedicine services and obtaining payment.

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Conclusion

Telemedicine offers several advantages in improving healthcare delivery, from increased access to healthcare to increased efficiency. However, healthcare providers must overcome telemedicine challenges to provide high-quality services to their patients. To overcome these limitations, healthcare providers can invest in reliable technology and collaborate with subject matter experts to make the most of this technology.

Mindfire Solutions is a software development company that has been assisting healthcare providers for 15+ years to better their services with the help of cutting-edge technologies. Our team specializes in modern healthcare tech stacks and provides custom solutions that enable stakeholders to optimize their workflows and enhance patient care outcomes.

Visit Mindfire Solution to learn more about us.

 

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Adoption of Cloud Computing in Healthcare to Improves Patient Care Coordination

Cloud Native, Healthcare Application Development, Healthcare IT, Software OutsourcingMindfire Solutions

The cloud has revolutionized the way we live and work. It has brought about a new era of flexibility and convenience, allowing us to access information and collaborate with others from anywhere in the world.

According to a Gartner survey, global spending on cloud services is projected to reach over $482 billion this year (2022). The numbers are much higher than those recorded last year, i.e., $313 billion.

Now, healthcare providers are taking advantage of this technology to improve patient care coordination. Adoption of Cloud Computing in Healthcare with Cloud-based applications can help healthcare organizations manage patients more effectively, share important data in a secured manner, and reduce costs.

Let’s first get on with the basics of cloud computing and move on to the benefits of cloud computing in healthcare.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. 

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services). This technology allows organizations to quickly scale up or down as needed and pay only for the resources they use.

It has many advantages over traditional on-premise IT infrastructure. With cloud computing, businesses can be more agile and responsive to change because they can provision new resources in minutes or hours instead of weeks or months.

Cloud computing offers greater scalability and enables businesses to scale up or down as they please, without having to make huge capital investments as they are required to pay only for the resources they use.

Cloud Computing in Healthcare

The healthcare industry is in a state of flux. With the ever-changing landscape of regulations, the increasing costs of care and the shift to value-based reimbursement models, healthcare organizations are looking for ways to cut costs and improve efficiency. One way they’re doing this is by adopting cloud-based solutions.

Cloud computing has already transformed many industries, and healthcare is next on the list. By moving to the cloud, healthcare organizations can reduce IT costs, improve patient care, and drive innovation.

Let’s look at how cloud computing is changing healthcare for the better.

  • Reducing IT Costs

One of the biggest benefits of adoption of cloud computing in healthcare is that it can help healthcare organizations reduce their IT costs. With on-premises solutions, organizations have to pay for hardware, software, maintenance, and support. But with cloud-based solutions, they only have to pay for what they use.

Additionally, cloud providers often offer discounts for long-term contracts or for paying upfront. As cloud providers handle maintenance and upgrades, healthcare organizations can further reduce costs.

  • Improving Patient Care 

Another benefit of cloud computing in healthcare is that it can help improve patient care. By moving to the cloud, healthcare organizations can improve collaboration between care team members, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes. 

In addition, patients are increasingly expecting more personalized and convenient care. And with the help of cloud-based solutions like telemedicine and patient portals, they’re getting it.

These solutions give patients 24/7 access to their health information and allow them to book appointments, refill prescriptions, and more from the comfort of their homes.

  • Improving Patient Experience 

Doctors and hospitals now have the ability to increase patient engagement and provide them with anywhere, anytime access to their medical data, test results, and even doctor’s notes thanks to adoption of cloud computing in healthcare. This gives patients more power and control, as well as increasing their knowledge of their medical conditions. Furthermore, because doctors can access the history of medical records, it provides a new level of safety for patients, preventing them from being overprescribed or avoiding unnecessary testing. 

  • Faster Deliver of Time- Critical Medical Services & Impact of Covid19 

Covid19 proved to be a powerful driver of rapid digital transformation across industries. Cloud computing in healthcare is cost-effective and quick to deploy, among other benefits that can be extremely useful, particularly during a pandemic. In many ways, the year 2020 has been unprecedented. Time was critical in combating the pandemic and constructing new hospitals, releasing the vaccine onto the market, and arranging a safe method of mass testing. Cloud computing should be used to help bring important technological solutions to market faster for Time – Critical Medical Services.

  • Data Security and Privacy 

Security and Privacy of patient data are the two most important factors that matter to healthcare providers and payers or for that matter any other healthcare stakeholder looking at leveraging software systems. All reputed cloud services providers undertake the required measures to ascertain that vulnerability of patient data to potential breach is either negative or as negligible as possible. It is, however, a moving target and it is advisable to hire the services of a reliable and experienced tech solution provider to address this concern while adopting cloud solutions.

  • Implementation of AI/ML & Access to Analytics for Data Driven Decisions 

Large datasets of patient information from ePHI, IoT devices, and consumer health applications are processed by cloud platforms. Technology can help to promote healthier patient behavior, improve disease detection rates, and aid in advanced diagnosis and decision making. Through data insights and analytics, AI/ML enables healthcare professionals to make data-driven decisions. It has the potential to personalize medicine, improve care, and deliver real-time information to patients and staff. Data from AI/ML is being used to drive innovation. Healthcare providers make better decisions with adopting cloud computing in healthcare, which improves service operations and increases hospital efficiency. Automated analytics provide significant benefits for patient scheduling, background checks, and managing all associated medical records. Data interoperability benefits research programmes by allowing researchers to quickly collect statistics from a diverse range of patients.

Cloud Computing Market & Opportunities in Health Care

Cloud Computing Makes Patient Care Coordination Easier

There is no denying that technology has revolutionized the healthcare industry. One of the most significant changes has been the move from paper-based systems to electronic health records (EHRs). This shift has resulted in more efficient and coordinated patient care.

However, as anyone who has ever dealt with a complex health issue knows, coordinating care can still be a major challenge. Many players are involved in the care of a single patient, including doctors, nurses, specialists, pharmacists, and others. It is difficult to track all the treatments and medications a patient takes. 

That’s where cloud computing comes in.

  • Cloud computing helps in storing and accessing data online. EHRs are often stored in the cloud, allowing different patient care team members to access them from anywhere at any time. This is a major advantage in coordinating care, as it allows everyone to see a patient’s complete medical history real time and in one place.
  • In addition to making information more readily available, cloud computing also enables sharing with ease large files such as x-rays or MRI scans. This is especially important when patients consult multiple specialists or receive care at different facilities.
  • In the past, patients would have to provide their records separately to each consulting physician, which was both time-consuming and inconvenient. With cloud computing, patients can give their doctors access to their records with just a few clicks.
  • Cloud computing in healthcare also makes it easier for doctors to communicate with each other. Earlier, if two doctors needed to discuss a patient’s diagnosis or treatment plan, they would have to do so by phone or fax (if they were lucky enough to have access to each other’s contact information). With secure cloud messaging platforms, doctors can easily send referrals, consult on cases, and request test results without ever having to pick up the phone.

Conclusion

Cloud computing in healthcare enables the doctors and other members of a patient’s care team to communicate and collaborate easily, resulting in more coordinated and efficient patient care. Adoption of cloud computing in healthcare also helps in implementing latest technologies like AI/ML.

If you are stuck with on premise healthcare software systems, now is the time to switch. Not only will you be able to improve patient care coordination, but you’ll also reap all the other benefits that a cloud infrastructure can provide you, leading to increased productivity and decreased costs.

If you are looking for a software technical partner who can assist you in developing custom solutions that are cloud-based, or in cloud migration, please reach out to us. With decades of experience, we have the necessary resources to help you achieve your goals. Connect with our experts today.

 

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AI in critical care

Role of AI in Chronic Care Management

Healthcare Application Development, Healthcare IT, Wellness SolutionsMindfire Solutions

Effectively managing chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes, cancer, and several others have been one of the biggest challenges for healthcare providers worldwide. According to a study, chronic diseases are responsible for 70% of deaths and about 50% of the disease burden globally. Owing to this, we will discuss how AI in chronic care management can change these numbers.

As the pandemic unleashed a global health crisis, many countries faced a shortage of healthcare professionals and medical resources. This caused several hurdles for patients with chronic conditions to get treatment at the right time. Such conditions forced chronic patients to adapt to remote and digital treatment, which is the new normal in the current world.

For medical professionals to deliver quality remote healthcare, it has become essential to leverage fast-emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Both AI and ML have already shown how they can significantly improve the efficiency of operations in various other industries like e-commerce, manufacturing, automotive, etc. In this article, we will take a look at the role of AI in Chronic Care Management (CCM).

Key Benefits of Chronic Care Management

Before we understand the importance of AI in Chronic Care Management, let us look at some key benefits of Chronic Care Management: 

  • Chronic Care Management or CCM offers an organized approach to dealing with chronic conditions, making the process more coordinated for patients as well as the healthcare provider.
  • Healthcare providers can build long-term relationships with patients through their CCM services, which can result in increased revenue.
  • It can prevent unnecessary visits to partitioners.
  • Researchers have proved that CCM can offer quality healthcare to patients at a lower cost.

What is the Role of AI in Critical Care Management?

Here is how AI in chronic care management can turn around the situation:

●     Medical Data Analysis

An extensive medical data set will be required to utilize AI in chronic care management at its full potential. In today’s digital world, it can be easily gathered throughout the patient life cycle via mobile applications, IoT devices, and patient portal software. An Al-based algorithm can analyze this pool of data and generate new insights and opportunities for both patients and medical professionals in CCM. This can streamline the overall chronic care management processes.

●     Prognosis and Prevention of the Disease

One aspect of CCM is to prevent diseases from happening. With the help of AI, practitioners can identify the choric disease to which the patient is susceptible. This allows the doctors to take the correct preventive measures and circumvent the chronic condition.

In a study published by Yannis Paschalidis in Harvard Business Review, healthcare professionals were able to forecast hospitalizations due to diabetes and heart disease a year in advance using machine learning and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) with an accuracy of 82%. 

●     Diagnosis of Diseases

Many recent studies have proved that AI can also be indispensable when it comes to the diagnosis of diseases. Al-algorithms can easily detect diseases based on data points like medical imagery, ECG data, patients’ demography, and their medical history. Such developments have led to time and cost-effective CCM service. It also has significantly improved remote diagnosis.

●     Treatment

The healthcare data can be used to create AI/ML models that can assist physicians in medication modeling and treatment suggestions. These models can be further applied to suggest appropriate dosage and treatment plans for the patient.

A personalized plan and treatment for individual patients can also be created by AI. The personalized treatment can enable clinicians to intervene before a patient’s condition becomes critical, making CCM more effective.

Recently, a company named IBM Watson has achieved some remarkable results by utilizing AI in the field of oncology. The organization performed genetic data analysis and was successfully able to identify the rare secondary leukemia caused by myelodysplastic syndromes.

●     Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)

With an AI-powered CCM, healthcare professionals can constantly monitor a patient’s vitals like blood pressure, pulse rate, temperatures, etc., from the comfort of their home. The AI can also send an alert to health professionals if there is any sudden or critical change in the vitals of a patient.

●     Virtual Assistant

Chronic diseases generally last for a lifetime. As the patient gets older, it gets difficult for them to keep track of medication and appointments, which causes disturbance in their chronic care management. In such cases, an AI-powered virtual assistant can come in handy for the patient. It can assist them by ensuring drug adherence and also monitor their vital data.

For example, a Meditech company created AI-embed nurse avatars that send notifications to the patient each morning for a check-in routine, record their vitals, and sends alerts for timely intake of medicine.

Another aspect of chronic care management is measuring and managing the patient’s chronic pain. Here again, AI can assist in detecting chronic pain by monitoring the facial muscle movements of patients who are unable to self-report the pain to their physicians.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence can offer actionable insights to guide clinical decisions and allow physicians to diagnose, treat and handle chronic conditions remotely, thus making chronic care management more efficient, accessible, and affordable.

That’s why many healthcare organizations have begun to utilize AI in their chronic care management services. If you are also looking to leverage AI to improve your chronic care management, you will need to hire or work with people who have relevant expertise and skill set.

Mindfire Solutions is an IT-service provider that has worked with several healthcare organizations over the years to provide customized healthcare tech solutions that are highly cost-effective, secure, and scalable. Visit Mindfire Solutions to learn more about us.

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Virtual Health Services

Sustaining Virtual Health Services triggered by COVID:

Healthcare ITMindfire Solutions

Introduction:

Covid-19 was a challenge like no other. With a world connected like never before and intertwined economies the virus spread like wildfire across the globe. However, as they say, every new challenge is an opportunity to create a better and more secure tomorrow. Devastating as it was, the aftermath of Covid-19 toes the line. The pandemic saw academics, scientific community, medical professionals and data scientists come together to assess unique methods that are rapid and secure to tackle the crisis with virtual health services. Data sharing, a key component in creating solutions was incentivised along with model training and testing without the hurdles of conventional collaborations. Healthcare providers and researchers focused on addressing the challenges of meeting the critical clinical needs created by the crisis, with remarkable results.

As per the article Federated learning for predicting clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 published in Nature Medicine “The pandemic has emphasized the need to expeditiously conduct data collaborations that empower the clinical and scientific communities when responding to rapidly evolving and widespread global challenges.”

Since the Covid-19 outbreak, Investment in digital health has skyrocketed, Venture Capitalists are queueing up to invest in the digital healthcare more than ever before. Thus providing the impetus for further innovation. Artificial Intelligence(AI) is another sector which proves to be a strong pillar of support for the Data Scientists, Academicians, Healthcare Professionals and Regulatory Authorities.

Regulatory Changes:

There was a slew of regulatory changes brought in by the US Government to tackle the pandemic and ensure faster care to the patients. The regulations aim to improve the safety of the healthcare professionals. We look at some of the blanket waivers brought in during the Pandemic:

Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA): By waiving off the section 1867(a) of the act, it facilitates hospitals to screen patients offsite. This helps to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Telemedicine: By waiving of certain sections related to 42 CFR, virtual health services became accessible to patients through an agreement with offsite hospital.

Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI): This enabled the healthcare facilities to develop, implement, maintain and evaluate an effective and exhaustive data-driven QAPI. Thereby the hospital can solely focus on treating patients during COVID-19.

Electronic Case Reporting (eCR): The automated generation and dissemination of case reports from the electronic health record (EHR) to public healthcare agencies makes disease reporting faster and easier. It moves data securely and seamlessly—from the EHR at the point of care, to data systems at state, territorial, and local agencies. This also allows public health to provide information back to healthcare professionals. The timely data sharing provides a real time picture of COVID-19 to support outbreak management.

To cover the entire set of regulatory changes and waivers is beyond the scope of this article. For more details do go through the link.

Trends during the Pandemic:

The pandemic brought forth the need for an alternative method of healthcare and allied health services. While this blog is being written, digital technologies are being harnessed to help prepare for future challenges.

Dissemination of information from credible sources – IT platforms were widely used by regulatory authorities to deal with the misinformation and educate the masses about Covid-19. WHO rolled out the ‘Stop the Spread’ campaign across platforms. They also rolled out another campaign within the campaign Playbook to tackle the wastage of resources. The aim is to document and share innovative and good vaccination practices  to educate the countries and communities at large.

One sector which emerged as the sunshine sector during the Pandemic is the Telehealth. With regulatory changes which facilitated the accessibility becoming permanent like for eg; the reimbursable telehealth codes for the 2021 fees schedule for physicians, the sector is witnessing an expansion in terms of services that it can offer.

According to a report by McKinsey, Tele Health services has increased 38 times since pre Covid days. The report mentions that consumers continue to view telehealth as an important modality for their future care needs. But the view varies widely depending on the type of care.

In 2020, Mckinsey had estimated that the virtual enabled healthcare industry would become a $250 billion industry. Going by the recent trends the prediction is well and truly on course.

During the Pandemic the usage of Telehealth services surged as patients sought the safe access to seek virtual health services. Likewise for healthcare professionals it provided the luxury of discharging their duties without being on the frontline.

The Future Scenario:

During the outbreak of Ebola in 2015, workshops were organised by White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation broadly defined three areas where Robotics can make a significant difference. As a result, it set a precedence for handling Covid-19 pandemic.

• Clinical Care – Telemedicine & Decontamination

• Logistics – Delivery & handling of contaminated waste

• Reconnaissance – Monitoring Compliance

Covid-19 introduced a fourth area – contactless consultancy services. This opens up the future for Tele Health services with the possibility of remotely controlled robotic systems deployed to the frontline.

With 5G bandwidth and smart phones entering the public domain, the day won’t be far when Medical Conferences and seminars will be held virtually. As a result, this opens the door for virtual reality in the field of Medicine. Not only will such an initiative reduce infection rates, it will help in reducing carbon footprint as well.

During the pandemic, there has been an increase interest in decentralized and digitally connected rapid diagnostic tests to widen access to testing. As a result, this increase capacity and eases the strain on healthcare systems and diagnostic laboratories.

There is an urgent need for creating applications to predict future eventualities, availability of essential medical services and optimising medical resources. IT and IT based solutions is a force multiplier for the healthcare sector. The applications are efficient, fast and accurate. The other important aspect is that IT based solutions are cost effective. This makes healthcare accessible with virtual health services and reduces the burden on the Government and Hospitals. It is the future of medical services to meet the global demand of equitable healthcare.

Technology trends shaping the post Covid world:

Over a period of time, Artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved by leaps and bounds in detection, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases. In India, City Scan has helped in proof reading for Radiologist’s and reduced the time lapse for diagnosis. Similarly, eye testing etc. are widely using AI for faster diagnosis and treatment. Artificial Intelligence applications with proper implementation can address the global health care inequalities that exists today.

During Covid-19, Artificial Intelligence based technical models provided the following:

• Helped in reducing the response time to patients.

• Giving predictive models of mortality.

• Inventory management.

• Predictive model for scanning the wave of Covid-19.

• Predicting the end and resurgence of the wave.

Deep learning, a facet of machine learning, is based on artificial neural networks. It provides the healthcare industry with the ability to analyse data efficiently with pinpoint accuracy. It has the ability to reduce admin work and increase insights into the patient’s condition and requirements. This helps medical professionals to focus on their job – that is to save lives.

Along with AI and ML, Semantic analysis and Deep learning will be the buzz words in the medical field in the near future. Together they open up a possibility of transforming the sector altogether.

Digital technology can aid in the clinical research with symptom based case identification. During the Pandemic, online symptom reporting was done in Singapore and UK.

Final Thoughts:

With the global population going Tech Savvy, it has enabled virtual health business models to include a range of services. For eg: enabling longitudinal virtual care, integration of telehealth with other virtual health solutions, and hybrid virtual/in-person care models. It has the potential to improve consumer experience/convenience, access, outcomes, and affordability – Digital Healthcare is one for the future.

With increased awareness, the world is now more than ready to move from the norm and embrace the new.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking for IT Solutions for Healthcare Services, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have significant experience over the years working with Healthcare IT Companies. We have a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, who have developed many custom virtual healthcare solutions for our global clients over the years.

Here are a few interesting projects we have done to develop virtual health solutions. Click here to know more: Case study on managing high risk patients.

Case study on PWA for mental health.

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Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis in Healthcare

Healthcare Application Development, Healthcare ITMindfire Solutions
Introduction:

Sentiment Analysis refers to analyzing text data and assigning some kind of sentiment to it. For e.g., we see a movie review on the IMDB website such as – “It was a good movie”. We can understand that the viewer liked the movie and we can go on to say that this review can be assigned a positive sentiment. Similarly, If the review was “It was a bad movie”, we can consider this as negative feedback for the movie and say that it generates a negative sentiment. So how do we go about creating a model that takes in a review/ statement as input and gives out the corresponding sentiment ?

One way to go about it is to create a dictionary of all words that correspond to positive feedback, and another of all words that provide negative feedback. Run a search through the statement and see which words are present. This is a very very simple example of how Sentiment analysis can be done. More on this later, but why would we need a Sentiment Analysis model?

Most companies provide their customers a platform, which could be social media or a company website, to express their feelings about a product or service so that the company can then use this data to improve the quality of their product / services. Since people can post feedback at ease with just their mobile phones, this generates a huge amount of data. Going through all data manually is a labor-intensive process. Hence, sentiment analysis has become an important tool for companies to track and monitor their online feedback and brand value. This is just one example; there are other areas as well where one can use a tool such as sentiment analysis. Let’s look at how it can help to solve some challenges in the Healthcare Industry.

Defining our Input to the model:

Before we discuss the details of the model, we need to find a way to represent sentences for a model to understand. The first approach is bag of words. The way this approach works is we first create a vocabulary of all words we have in our training data. This vocabulary then forms our feature space, or our X’s for the training. Given the number of words in the English language, we could have 10000 words in our vocabulary. We will get to reduce our feature space later.

So now that we have our X’s, we define a way to represent a sentence. We can do so by assigning the count of each word to our feature space. Coming back to our previous example, “It was a good movie”, we will have the following counts or word frequencies- It:1 , was: 1, a: 1, good:1, movie:1. The values for all other words will be 0. Each word will have a fixed position on our feature space, so for all other words, if we substitute zero then we have 0, 0,0,…,1,0,,…1,0…0. Note we have counts only at the position of the words in our current example. This type of encoding is also called one hot encoding.

We can limit the number of words our vocabulary has by using a few tricks, for instance removing words like a, the, this, is, etc. These words do not generally add any meaning to our sentences. These are stop words. Next, to further limit our vocabulary, we can keep only those words that have a frequency above a certain threshold. Doing this, we can reduce our vocabulary to 1/10th of our initial size. Now coming to encoding our target variable. Since this is a good review, we have 1 as our target variable. Note that we are only trying to classify good or bad reviews and having a 1 for good and 0 for bad is sufficient for training our model. All of these can be achieved by a few lines of code using python’s NLTK (Natural Language ToolKit) library and python’s Scikit-learn library.

Defining our model:

Machine learning can broadly be categorized into two parts, supervised and unsupervised learning. Supervised learning is one where we give both input and targets as training data. This is generally used for classification or regression tasks. Unsupervised learning contains just input data, no output is associated with it, and this is used for clustering problems, where the algorithm tries to group the input data into clusters. Since this is a classification problem, we will be classifying the review into one of the good or bad classes, we will rely on either Logistic regression or Random Forest classifier.

We will go into the details of logistic regression or Random Forest in a different article. But for the purpose of this venture, we will pass a python list (arrays) to the model. This is the input list that we get using one hot encoding as defined above, and get a one or zero as an output. Let’s assume the model we build has around 80% chance for classifying a given review accurately. This may not necessarily be difficult to achieve for a task such as this. All of these can be achieved fairly easily using python’s Scikit Learn library.

Problems faced by the service Industry and Solution with Sentiment Analysis:

An insurance company wants to find out whether imparting behavioral training to their service staff has an impact on the overall feedback they receive as reviews.

We start by defining a metric for valuation. Let our performance indicator be the number of positive reviews/ total number of reviews. Assuming there are at least 30 reviews for each staff under consideration. We get the reviews for all staff before and after behavioral training has been imparted. Put them through our model and generate positive and negative outcomes for these reviews. Then do a comparison of percentage positive and negative reviews before and after the training. This will establish a correlation between training and change in reviews. To establish causation, we also need to create treatment and control groups. The treatment group will have the staff that receives the training and control will be the staff that doesn’t. Comparing the change between treatment and control groups will tell us whether the training has an impact.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking for solutions in Sentiment Analysis, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have deep expertise in AI and ML Capabilities. With a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, that have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

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AI in Healthcare

AI in Healthcare Insurance

Healthcare Application Development, Healthcare IT, Machine LearningMindfire Solutions

AI has transformed industries and has immense potential to reshape the healthcare landscape. Medical data like patient visits, prescriptions contain valuable information which can be extracted to create a more structured data format. This has become possible with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This in turn offers insights into the trends and facilitates collaboration between different healthcare units. Applications for AI in healthcare range from early detection of symptoms to potential diagnosis at a fraction of the cost and increased accuracy.

What is Optical Character Recognition?

Artificial intelligence refers to the use of Machine Learning algorithms to mimic human behavior. Say we want to create a program that takes an input and gives an output. The program uses some decision-making mechanism to arrive at an output. This is primitively done by something called IF-ELSE statements. The limitation of these statements is that one needs to know the exact condition that will produce the desired output. For example, we know the marks of a student and we want to assign a grade, we can hardcode the same using if-else statements – IF marks > 90 then grade = ‘A’. In this case, we have a clearly defined boundary that helps us arrive at our output. But what happens when we don’t have a clearly defined boundary?

Let me explain this with an example. Suppose we have an image of a letter. And we want our program to tell us which letter it is. What kind of code shall we write? This is an example of a problem that doesn’t have a clearly defined boundary. One way to solve this problem is to build a model, which does not use if-else statements but works quite differently. The idea is to feed the program an input image (say an image of ‘A’) and tell the program that it’s an ‘A’. We do this repetitively and try to get the program to learn what ‘A’ looks like. Hence, the term “Machine Learning”. We do the same for every letter or number. This falls under the computer vision category, namely Optical Character Recognition.

Overview of Natural Language Processing :

Natural language Processing is an area of AI and Linguistics and it deals with the application of computational techniques and models to the analysis of human languages. NLP deals with processing written text including but not limited to extracting useful information such as named entities, etc. This requires an understanding of what a word means, which is not something computers generally have. This too is done by learning, where a huge amount of text is fed to the model, and it will try to learn patterns and dependencies between words. In the next section, we will define a problem statement and see how an application of these two concepts can help us make better decisions faster, way faster.

Problems faced by the Healthcare Industry :

Insurance companies have certain parameters to account for when finalizing the premiums they charge for their insurance. One of the most important parameters is the medical history of the member/ insurance holder. The idea is that if a member has more cases of medical history then that member is more likely to raise a claim in the future, thereby costing more.

So the insurance companies need to know relevant details of the medical history and assign risk scores (this could be a topic for another article) corresponding to the medical history. But medical histories are generally stored in paper form. Suppose you had a doctor’s visit, everything there is generally stored in paper format. One might have had any number of tests, and these are in most cases available in paper form. Thus, going through all the paperwork of a member’s medical history is an engaging task. This might take a person anywhere between 30mins – 1 hour. So, is there a way to automate the task?

How can AI help to resolve the issue?

The first step in the process is to get the images of all our documents. The idea is to use OCR to extract the text information from images and subsequently use NLP to extract relevant information, such as diagnosis, procedure or operation, medications that the member is on, etc. There are many open-source OCR engines, one such engine is Tesseract OCR.

Tesseract is used for text detection within large documents or used in concurrence with an external text detector. It can be used directly or through an API to extract text from images. It supports Unicode and has the ability to discern more than 100 languages and can also be trained to recognize multiple languages. The current model, Tesseract 4 focuses on line recognition. It also supports the legacy Tesseract 3 in recognizing character patterns. It is compatible with many programming languages and frameworks. CNN (Convolutional Neural network) is typically used for single character whereas RNN is used for multi-characters.

The next step is to feed the image to the tesseract engine. It will give a file output that contains text extracted from the image. There are various Open source NLP engines. We then feed lines from the text file to our NLP engine which will read each line and use dependencies between words to figure out what our diagnosis, procedure or medications will be. Most NLP engines offer phrase matching capabilities, so we can look for particular phrases as well. We can narrow our search to a specific diagnosis (or any other information of relevance) as well.

Final Steps :

Once we have extracted output from the NLP engine, we can create a database that will have fields such as member name, document type, extracted information, etc. We can use the above pipeline and feed it numerous files at once. After every output, we can append the same to our database.

This process takes a mere few seconds to go through all the files of a member. Using this, we will be able to read through the medical history of thousands of members in a matter of hours.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking to develop applications for AI in healthcare, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have deep expertise in AI and ML Capabilities. With a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, that have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

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NLP Image

Impact of NLP on Healthcare Industry

Healthcare IT, Thoughts,

Natural language processing (NLP), along with machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, and image recognition, are all branches of artificial intelligence (AI). The goal of NLP software is to build computer systems that will accept input in the form of spoken or written language and will provide spoken or written output i.e. communicate as if the computer system were a human.

Thanks to devices and applications like Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana, much of the world’s population has at least a passing familiarity with NLP. It is being used today to perform a wide range of tasks across many industries. Until recently though, healthcare organizations have lagged behind others in capturing the benefits NLP delivers. However, it’s beginning to catch up.

Here are several use cases for NLP in healthcare that are already enhancing the field. Each of these will contribute to the larger digital transformation of healthcare as technology continues to advance.

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Medical Coding and Billing

NLP streamlines the way medical coders extract diagnostic, procedural and other clinical information. Rather than a coder reading documents and converting them to alphanumeric codes, NLP reads them and submits the codes to the coder for verification. This allows the human coder to work on documents that NLP cannot process accurately, and reduces the overall expense of coding medical information. In the end, more accurate and thorough coding results in more accurate and timely billing.

Virtual Nursing Assistants

The rise of virtual nursing assistants capable of communicating with patients using NLP is underway. Regular communication between patients and the nursing bot extends care beyond the walls of the clinic room without burdening existing resources. Adherence to the patient’s care plan can be monitored, and triggers can notify providers of issues that need human attention. Patients can receive round-the-clock access to support and answers, including help with medication. Researchers in this field estimate virtual nursing assistants will reduce U.S. healthcare costs $20 billion by 2026.

Robot-Assisted Surgery

Some surgical robots use AI to apply information obtained from prior surgeries to the current case, leading to progressively better outcomes. Beyond the many well-known advantages, robotic surgery delivers, adding an NLP component allows surgeons to query the system and to direct its actions verbally.

Reducing “EHR Burnout”

Recent studies have indicated that healthcare providers spend nearly half of each day updating electronic health records and doing other administrative work, which is a matter of concern. It leaves them with very less time to perform their core functions of examining and discussing clinical, diagnostic and treatment information with patients in a face-to-face environment.

Entering and managing patient information is a major contributor to physician burnout. More than half of physicians surveyed in a Physician’s Foundation 2018 study, reported entering data into the EHR reduces their efficiency and detracts them from their interaction with patients. Systems that use NLP allow physicians to enter notes into the EHR by speaking to it. This saves time versus having to type. Besides, it also allows patients to amend or correct what the doctor is entering into the EHR.

Other Important Use Cases

While improving the clinical value of EHRs and reducing physician burnout is one of the most pressing challenges among healthcare organizations, NLP is contributing to the digital transformation of healthcare in several other ways. For example, NLP is helpful in

While improving the clinical value of EHRs and reducing physician burnout is one of the most pressing challenges among healthcare organizations, NLP is contributing to the digital transformation of healthcare in several other ways. For example, NLP is helpful in

  • Comforting patients who become confused and anxious because they do not understand the data being presented to them through a portal website. For instance, NLP can explain the meaning of abbreviations and medical terminology. Rather than leaving the patient to worry or call the physician to explain the report, NLP can educate and possibly also calm the patient.
  • Offering summarized updates of key ideas, concepts, and conclusions contained in large volumes of clinical notes, journal articles and other narrative texts gives practitioners quick access to volumes of information that would otherwise require a lot of time to read through.
  • Easy extraction of data from free-form text and insertion into fixed-field data files, such as the structured fields in an EHR.
  • Handling a physician’s free-form spoken or text query, which is especially useful for queries that require gathering and organizing data from multiple sources.
  • NLP and other AI components can also accelerate the movement away from fee-for-service models and toward value-based healthcare by organizing unstructured health data derived from EHRs and other sources. Much of that “hidden” big data can shed light on health outcomes for entire populations of patients, which has been impractical until recently.

 

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If you have any queries in this field, talk to Mindfire Solutions. For over 20+ years now, we have been the preferred Software Development Partner of over 1000+ Small and Medium-sized enterprises across the globe.

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