• Education
    • Higher Education
    • Scholarships & Grants
    • Online Learning
    • School Reforms
    • Research & Innovation
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
    • Fashion & Beauty
    • Home & Living
    • Relationships & Family
  • Technology & Startups
    • Software & Apps
    • Startup Success Stories
    • Startups & Innovations
    • Tech Regulations
    • Venture Capital
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cybersecurity
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Gadgets & Devices
    • Industry Analysis
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
Today Headline
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
Today Headline
No Result
View All Result
Home Science & Environment Medical Research

Health Care AI, Intended To Save Money, Turns Out To Require a Lot of Expensive Humans

January 10, 2025
in Medical Research
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
0
6
SHARES
13
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


Preparing cancer patients for difficult decisions is an oncologist’s job. They don’t always remember to do it, however. At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, doctors are nudged to talk about a patient’s treatment and end-of-life preferences by an artificially intelligent algorithm that predicts the chances of death.

But it’s far from being a set-it-and-forget-it tool. A routine tech checkup revealed the algorithm decayed during the covid-19 pandemic, getting 7 percentage points worse at predicting who would die, according to a 2022 study.

There were likely real-life impacts. Ravi Parikh, an Emory University oncologist who was the study’s lead author, told KFF Health News the tool failed hundreds of times to prompt doctors to initiate that important discussion — possibly heading off unnecessary chemotherapy — with patients who needed it.

He believes several algorithms designed to enhance medical care weakened during the pandemic, not just the one at Penn Medicine. “Many institutions are not routinely monitoring the performance” of their products, Parikh said.

Algorithm glitches are one facet of a dilemma that computer scientists and doctors have long acknowledged but that is starting to puzzle hospital executives and researchers: Artificial intelligence systems require consistent monitoring and staffing to put in place and to keep them working well.

In essence: You need people, and more machines, to make sure the new tools don’t mess up.

“Everybody thinks that AI will help us with our access and capacity and improve care and so on,” said Nigam Shah, chief data scientist at Stanford Health Care. “All of that is nice and good, but if it increases the cost of care by 20%, is that viable?”

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

Government officials worry hospitals lack the resources to put these technologies through their paces. “I have looked far and wide,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at a recent agency panel on AI. “I do not believe there’s a single health system, in the United States, that’s capable of validating an AI algorithm that’s put into place in a clinical care system.”

AI is already widespread in health care. Algorithms are used to predict patients’ risk of death or deterioration, to suggest diagnoses or triage patients, to record and summarize visits to save doctors work, and to approve insurance claims.

If tech evangelists are right, the technology will become ubiquitous — and profitable. The investment firm Bessemer Venture Partners has identified some 20 health-focused AI startups on track to make $10 million in revenue each in a year. The FDA has approved nearly a thousand artificially intelligent products.

Evaluating whether these products work is challenging. Evaluating whether they continue to work — or have developed the software equivalent of a blown gasket or leaky engine — is even trickier.

Take a recent study at Yale Medicine evaluating six “early warning systems,” which alert clinicians when patients are likely to deteriorate rapidly. A supercomputer ran the data for several days, said Dana Edelson, a doctor at the University of Chicago and co-founder of a company that provided one algorithm for the study. The process was fruitful, showing huge differences in performance among the six products.

It’s not easy for hospitals and providers to select the best algorithms for their needs. The average doctor doesn’t have a supercomputer sitting around, and there is no Consumer Reports for AI.

“We have no standards,” said Jesse Ehrenfeld, immediate past president of the American Medical Association. “There is nothing I can point you to today that is a standard around how you evaluate, monitor, look at the performance of a model of an algorithm, AI-enabled or not, when it’s deployed.”

Perhaps the most common AI product in doctors’ offices is called ambient documentation, a tech-enabled assistant that listens to and summarizes patient visits. Last year, investors at Rock Health tracked $353 million flowing into these documentation companies. But, Ehrenfeld said, “There is no standard right now for comparing the output of these tools.”

And that’s a problem, when even small errors can be devastating. A team at Stanford University tried using large language models — the technology underlying popular AI tools like ChatGPT — to summarize patients’ medical history. They compared the results with what a physician would write.

“Even in the best case, the models had a 35% error rate,” said Stanford’s Shah. In medicine, “when you’re writing a summary and you forget one word, like ‘fever’ — I mean, that’s a problem, right?”

Sometimes the reasons algorithms fail are fairly logical. For example, changes to underlying data can erode their effectiveness, like when hospitals switch lab providers.

Sometimes, however, the pitfalls yawn open for no apparent reason.

Sandy Aronson, a tech executive at Mass General Brigham’s personalized medicine program in Boston, said that when his team tested one application meant to help genetic counselors locate relevant literature about DNA variants, the product suffered “nondeterminism” — that is, when asked the same question multiple times in a short period, it gave different results.

Aronson is excited about the potential for large language models to summarize knowledge for overburdened genetic counselors, but “the technology needs to improve.”

If metrics and standards are sparse and errors can crop up for strange reasons, what are institutions to do? Invest lots of resources. At Stanford, Shah said, it took eight to 10 months and 115 man-hours just to audit two models for fairness and reliability.

Experts interviewed by KFF Health News floated the idea of artificial intelligence monitoring artificial intelligence, with some (human) data whiz monitoring both. All acknowledged that would require organizations to spend even more money — a tough ask given the realities of hospital budgets and the limited supply of AI tech specialists.

“It’s great to have a vision where we’re melting icebergs in order to have a model monitoring their model,” Shah said. “But is that really what I wanted? How many more people are we going to need?”

Darius Tahir:
[email protected],
@dariustahir

Related Topics

Contact Us

Submit a Story Tip




Preparing cancer patients for difficult decisions is an oncologist’s job. They don’t always remember to do it, however. At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, doctors are nudged to talk about a patient’s treatment and end-of-life preferences by an artificially intelligent algorithm that predicts the chances of death.

But it’s far from being a set-it-and-forget-it tool. A routine tech checkup revealed the algorithm decayed during the covid-19 pandemic, getting 7 percentage points worse at predicting who would die, according to a 2022 study.

There were likely real-life impacts. Ravi Parikh, an Emory University oncologist who was the study’s lead author, told KFF Health News the tool failed hundreds of times to prompt doctors to initiate that important discussion — possibly heading off unnecessary chemotherapy — with patients who needed it.

He believes several algorithms designed to enhance medical care weakened during the pandemic, not just the one at Penn Medicine. “Many institutions are not routinely monitoring the performance” of their products, Parikh said.

Algorithm glitches are one facet of a dilemma that computer scientists and doctors have long acknowledged but that is starting to puzzle hospital executives and researchers: Artificial intelligence systems require consistent monitoring and staffing to put in place and to keep them working well.

In essence: You need people, and more machines, to make sure the new tools don’t mess up.

“Everybody thinks that AI will help us with our access and capacity and improve care and so on,” said Nigam Shah, chief data scientist at Stanford Health Care. “All of that is nice and good, but if it increases the cost of care by 20%, is that viable?”

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

Government officials worry hospitals lack the resources to put these technologies through their paces. “I have looked far and wide,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at a recent agency panel on AI. “I do not believe there’s a single health system, in the United States, that’s capable of validating an AI algorithm that’s put into place in a clinical care system.”

AI is already widespread in health care. Algorithms are used to predict patients’ risk of death or deterioration, to suggest diagnoses or triage patients, to record and summarize visits to save doctors work, and to approve insurance claims.

If tech evangelists are right, the technology will become ubiquitous — and profitable. The investment firm Bessemer Venture Partners has identified some 20 health-focused AI startups on track to make $10 million in revenue each in a year. The FDA has approved nearly a thousand artificially intelligent products.

Evaluating whether these products work is challenging. Evaluating whether they continue to work — or have developed the software equivalent of a blown gasket or leaky engine — is even trickier.

Take a recent study at Yale Medicine evaluating six “early warning systems,” which alert clinicians when patients are likely to deteriorate rapidly. A supercomputer ran the data for several days, said Dana Edelson, a doctor at the University of Chicago and co-founder of a company that provided one algorithm for the study. The process was fruitful, showing huge differences in performance among the six products.

It’s not easy for hospitals and providers to select the best algorithms for their needs. The average doctor doesn’t have a supercomputer sitting around, and there is no Consumer Reports for AI.

“We have no standards,” said Jesse Ehrenfeld, immediate past president of the American Medical Association. “There is nothing I can point you to today that is a standard around how you evaluate, monitor, look at the performance of a model of an algorithm, AI-enabled or not, when it’s deployed.”

Perhaps the most common AI product in doctors’ offices is called ambient documentation, a tech-enabled assistant that listens to and summarizes patient visits. Last year, investors at Rock Health tracked $353 million flowing into these documentation companies. But, Ehrenfeld said, “There is no standard right now for comparing the output of these tools.”

And that’s a problem, when even small errors can be devastating. A team at Stanford University tried using large language models — the technology underlying popular AI tools like ChatGPT — to summarize patients’ medical history. They compared the results with what a physician would write.

“Even in the best case, the models had a 35% error rate,” said Stanford’s Shah. In medicine, “when you’re writing a summary and you forget one word, like ‘fever’ — I mean, that’s a problem, right?”

Sometimes the reasons algorithms fail are fairly logical. For example, changes to underlying data can erode their effectiveness, like when hospitals switch lab providers.

Sometimes, however, the pitfalls yawn open for no apparent reason.

Sandy Aronson, a tech executive at Mass General Brigham’s personalized medicine program in Boston, said that when his team tested one application meant to help genetic counselors locate relevant literature about DNA variants, the product suffered “nondeterminism” — that is, when asked the same question multiple times in a short period, it gave different results.

Aronson is excited about the potential for large language models to summarize knowledge for overburdened genetic counselors, but “the technology needs to improve.”

If metrics and standards are sparse and errors can crop up for strange reasons, what are institutions to do? Invest lots of resources. At Stanford, Shah said, it took eight to 10 months and 115 man-hours just to audit two models for fairness and reliability.

Experts interviewed by KFF Health News floated the idea of artificial intelligence monitoring artificial intelligence, with some (human) data whiz monitoring both. All acknowledged that would require organizations to spend even more money — a tough ask given the realities of hospital budgets and the limited supply of AI tech specialists.

“It’s great to have a vision where we’re melting icebergs in order to have a model monitoring their model,” Shah said. “But is that really what I wanted? How many more people are we going to need?”

Darius Tahir:
[email protected],
@dariustahir

Related Topics

Contact Us

Submit a Story Tip



Previous Post

Trump hosts Republican governors in Florida and talks anew about Greenland and drones

Next Post

SpaceX launches NROL-153, expanding U.S. spy satellite constellation  

Related Posts

Botox

New rules for cosmetic injectables aim to make the industry safer. Will they work?

June 7, 2025
5

How Medical Marijuana Can Help With Leg Injuries

June 7, 2025
7
Next Post

SpaceX launches NROL-153, expanding U.S. spy satellite constellation  

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

April 2, 2025
Pioneering 3D printing project shares successes

Product reduces TPH levels to non-hazardous status

November 27, 2024

Hospital Mergers Fail to Deliver Better Care or Lower Costs, Study Finds todayheadline

December 31, 2024

Police ID man who died after Corso Italia fight

December 23, 2024
Harris tells supporters 'never give up' and urges peaceful transfer of power

Harris tells supporters ‘never give up’ and urges peaceful transfer of power

0
Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend's Mother

Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend’s Mother

0

Trump ‘looks forward’ to White House meeting with Biden

0
Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

0
A hot trend in the housing market is Gen Z buying homes with siblings

A hot trend in the housing market is Gen Z buying homes with siblings todayheadline

June 8, 2025
Paris 2024 Olympic Games - Day One

Katie Ledecky, Bobby Finke, Gretchen Walsh win third titles at nationals, history calls at worlds

June 8, 2025

White House slams LA ‘insurrection’ as protests erupt over deportation raids

June 8, 2025
LPA, 'habagat' to bring rains over several parts of PH

LPA, ‘habagat’ to bring rains over several parts of PH

June 8, 2025

Recent News

A hot trend in the housing market is Gen Z buying homes with siblings

A hot trend in the housing market is Gen Z buying homes with siblings todayheadline

June 8, 2025
4
Paris 2024 Olympic Games - Day One

Katie Ledecky, Bobby Finke, Gretchen Walsh win third titles at nationals, history calls at worlds

June 8, 2025
7

White House slams LA ‘insurrection’ as protests erupt over deportation raids

June 8, 2025
9
LPA, 'habagat' to bring rains over several parts of PH

LPA, ‘habagat’ to bring rains over several parts of PH

June 8, 2025
6

TodayHeadline is a dynamic news website dedicated to delivering up-to-date and comprehensive news coverage from around the globe.

Follow Us

Browse by Category

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Basketball
  • Business & Finance
  • Climate Change
  • Crime & Justice
  • Cybersecurity
  • Economic Policies
  • Elections
  • Entertainment
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Environmental Policies
  • Europe
  • Football
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Health
  • Medical Research
  • Mental Health
  • Middle East
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Politics
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Science & Environment
  • Software & Apps
  • Space Exploration
  • Sports
  • Stock Market
  • Technology & Startups
  • Tennis
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Us & Canada
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • World News

Recent News

A hot trend in the housing market is Gen Z buying homes with siblings

A hot trend in the housing market is Gen Z buying homes with siblings todayheadline

June 8, 2025
Paris 2024 Olympic Games - Day One

Katie Ledecky, Bobby Finke, Gretchen Walsh win third titles at nationals, history calls at worlds

June 8, 2025
  • Education
  • Lifestyle
  • Technology & Startups
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy

© 2024 Todayheadline.co

Welcome Back!

OR

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Business & Finance
  • Corporate News
  • Economic Policies
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Market Trends
  • Crime & Justice
  • Court Cases
  • Criminal Investigations
  • Cybercrime
  • Legal Reforms
  • Policing
  • Education
  • Higher Education
  • Online Learning
  • Entertainment
  • Awards & Festivals
  • Celebrity News
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Health
  • Fitness & Nutrition
  • Medical Breakthroughs
  • Mental Health
  • Pandemic Updates
  • Lifestyle
  • Fashion & Beauty
  • Food & Drink
  • Home & Living
  • Politics
  • Elections
  • Government Policies
  • International Relations
  • Legislative News
  • Political Parties
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cybersecurity
  • Emerging Technologies
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Industry Analysis
  • Basketball
  • Football
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Climate Change
  • Environmental Policies
  • Medical Research
  • Science & Environment
  • Space Exploration
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • Sports
  • Tennis
  • Technology & Startups
  • Software & Apps
  • Startup Success Stories
  • Startups & Innovations
  • Tech Regulations
  • Venture Capital
  • Uncategorized
  • World News
  • Us & Canada
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Travel
  • Research & Innovation
  • Scholarships & Grants
  • School Reforms
  • Stock Market
  • TV & Streaming
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
  • About us
  • Contact

© 2024 Todayheadline.co