Dr John Frownfelter Discusses AI in Healthcare Practices

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now being used in healthcare practices to risk stratify patients and identify interventions that will work, said John Frownfelter, MD, FACP, chief medical officer of Jvion.

Transcript

Artificial intelligence isn't just in the future anymore. How is it currently being used in healthcare?

Artificial intelligence is being used in a number of ways, most directly in clinical care. It’s being used to inform, in the way that we use it at least, it’s being used to inform clinicians about patients’ risks that otherwise aren’t recognize, and also what the nature of those risks are. So, it isn’t just risk stratification. It goes on to identify what the reason is behind it.

And then, the last insight that we provide with AI is to identify what interventions will work with those patients. Down to the patient level. And those insights are data driven, based on this concept of the big data; they’re not based on an algorithm and they’re not based on just clinical science.

When practices start to use AI, do they need to educate physicians so the technology gets utilized or does it happen behind the scene and physicians don't even realize it's happening?

Well, they absolutely do realize it. Sometimes we work directly with physicians for them to understand. Often the users are not physicians. The users might be a case manager, might be a nurse, and it might be a physician, but in any case, the physicians need to understand enough to be on board. Because they dictate often what comes into a practice, especially in the ambulatory setting.

So, we look at data, we look at successes, we use evidence, and published literature, and we’re actively publishing now to reinforce that. That wins over physicians, because we’re data driven, and then when they see it working in their own practice, it reinforces—success begets success, if you will.