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New multiyear partnerships with the New England Journal of Medicine and the JAMA Network will bring more peer-reviewed medical evidence directly into the Abridge artificial intelligence-driven clinical platform, the company said this week.
WHY IT MATTERS
Already available through Abridge's AI-driven clinical decision support (CDS) technology are insights from Wolters Kluwer Health's UpToDate. But later this year, medical research data from NEJM and JAMA Network will also become generally available to the company's healthcare customers, the company announced Wednesday.
Abridge's new content agreements with the prestigious journals make their published clinical evidence available without breaking a doctor's focus on the patient, according to cardiologist Dr. Shiv Rao, Abridge CEO and co-founder.
Doctors do not need to leave their workflows to search for research insights. Abridge said its context-aware, ambient AI listens to conversations with patients and automatically surfaces relevant research and provides evidence-based answers to clinical questions.
"There is no higher scientific standard in medicine than the research published in the New England Journal of Medicine and in JAMA, and we are committed to ensuring that standard is integrated into the clinical encounter as contextual insight grounded in the patient conversation," Rao said in the announcement.
The platform's clinical documentation created during a patient encounter also cites evidence-based sources, the company noted, adding that care teams can also use Abridge to prepare for patient appointments.
For the medical journals, the new partnerships with Abridge reflect a desire to improve access to their content, "making trusted, validated evidence available at the point of care," Brian Shields, group vice president and publisher of JAMA Network, said in a statement.
THE LARGER TREND
By integrating peer-reviewed, validated medical journal content into AI, Abridge aims to drive the quality of its evidence layers.
While AI-CDS can streamline physician documentation and workflows, from routine care visits to emergency rooms, and health system chief information officers see it as a competitive necessity, there are still patient safety concerns.
Along with opportunities, there is a responsibility to address the risks of using "Generative Artificial Intelligence for Health and Medicine," according to a book published last year by the National Academy of Sciences.
In addition to AI hallucinations, algorithmic bias and general inaccuracies that could cause patient harm, there is the matter of the quality of the data behind CDS.
To ensure AI safety and improve patient outcomes, governance assures that clean data is a foundational requirement, including continuously updated evidence-based data.
Some see AI playing "a novel role" in improving safety for patients and clinicians.
"AI can help to serve the right content at the right time, at key points in the clinical workflow, so clinicians never lose their stride while tapping into trusted knowledge and recommendations to treat patients," Stacey Caywood, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Health and its executive board chair, told Healthcare IT News last year.
ON THE RECORD
"AI is already shaping clinical decision-making, and our role is to ensure it is grounded in trusted, peer-reviewed evidence," David Sampson, vice president and chief publishing officer at NEJM Group, said in a statement.
"JAMA Network's mission is to promote the science and art of medicine and the betterment of public health, which includes helping physicians remain informed in multiple areas of medicine," Shields added.
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
