AI Technology in Oncology Care: Thoughts From The Oncology Institute

In an interview with the Journal of Clinical Pathways, Daniel Virnich, MD, CEO of The Oncology Institute, Yale Podnos, MD, CMO of The Oncology Institute, and Nikhil Buduma, co-founder and chief scientist for Ambience Healthcare, discuss the benefits, challenges, and considerations for implementing AI technology into oncology practices.

Transcript: 

Daniel Virnich, MD: I'm Dr. Daniel Virnich, Chief Executive Officer at the Oncology Institute.

Yale Podnos, MD: I'm Doctor Yale Podnos. I'm the Chief Medical Officer at the Oncology Institute.

Nikhil Buduma: I'm Nikhil Beduma Co. Founder and chief Scientist of Ambience Healthcare.

Give us a little background about what led to The Oncology Institute implementing Ambience Healthcare’s AI technology.

Dr Podnos: Our physicians spend a tremendous amount of time in charting and doing other administrative means. And so I think, first and foremost, they're really looking for some productivity enhancements and ways to relieve that. I think additionally, the way everybody charts is different because it goes back to you know how we were taught in medical school, and so this is also an opportunity for us to standardize it, and with that their abilities for anybody subsequently reading the notes, to know exactly where to get information much more quickly than the way we've been doing it.

What aspects of the program are the most impactful to how The Oncology Institute delivers oncology care?

Dr Podnos: I think, for first and foremost, we you know, we're just scratching the surface about what the these programs and ambience in particular can do. And they're really excited about that. You know, for what we've been doing now, it's the ability to increase our productivity and charting. But I think it has all sorts of applications in terms of the ability to flag patients for clinical trials immediately. 

What are the challenges or other considerations for practices that are considering implementing AI technology into their oncology care?

Dr Virnich: One major consideration is just ensuring that whatever technology partner you are using for generative AI solutions understands the complexities of data transfer and healthcare and the security needs when it comes to handling sensitive, patient information. We're very confident with Ambience’s abilities in that regards. A major challenge for consideration on implementing AI technology into oncology care, or really any aspect of medical practice is ensuring that your physicians and staff understand the dramatic improvement that such technology can provide inpatient experience, patient care, and efficiencies. Health care has a tendency to move slowly when it comes to adoption of new technology, and that is a issue that needs to be communicated clearly across any medical practice.

What financial impact has the program had for the Oncology Institute?

Dr Virnich: So we have just begun to scratch the surface of our capabilities and partnering with Ambience to provide AI-based technology solutions for our practice. We don't fully understand what the ultimate financial impact will be. But we already have initial feedback from physicians that have used the technology that it's leading to dramatic improvements in efficiencies in terms of patient care and ability to complete patient visits in an efficient and thorough manner. It also is leading to early signs of improvement in physician satisfaction which will ultimately help us retain the strongest clinicians, and drive down physician turnover.

Dr Podnos: We are also formatting in such a way to increase our billing and coding accuracy, which will have downstream revenue impacts, and then terms of denials and the such.

Looking forward, what are your thoughts on the future of AI in health care?

Nikhil Buduma: What's interesting about the opportunity for generative AI, and in oncology and health care more broadly. So you think about the interaction between a clinician and their patient, especially in oncology. The first time you get diagnosed with cancer. That is a serious diagnosis with a lot of new information. And so the importance to be able to have that clinician be able to fully focus on the patient and support them throughout the entire care journey. The complexity of supporting the communication with the entire team that's responsible for that patient's care and also supporting that patient's family. As they're navigating this difficult transition. These are all incredibly important aspects of navigating oncology and in healthcare. And so a big part of how we think about the opportunity scope here is leveraging generative AI capabilities to almost create a co pilot for clinicians and their families as they navigate these decisions, we're obviously starting off with documentation and enabling that clinician to no longer multi task in the computer and focus purely on the patient.

We're also working on the ability to generate after visit summaries for a variety of different audiences for the patient and their families to understand the decisions that are being made, and why those decisions are happening and what it means for their care. The ability to also create summaries for other members of the care team, including how to communicate back to the primary care physician who's going to have to manage this patient in in the context of all the other conditions that they have, as well as the ability to make sure that we're communicating to the other. The other team members who are also gonna be responsible for working with unblocking that patient’s ability to access the important treatments that they that they need and making sure that they can get things like a chemo in a in a timely fashion. And so the way we think about this is almost as a co-pilot to to help aid each of the important people in this process to navigate this and be able to focus on the things that matters most, which is the quality of care that's being delivered and not have to worry about how it's being documented or how it's being captured or learning all the requirements around the documentation. For example, as you transition to a value-based care setting.

As Dr. Podnos also mentioned, you're also at the by virtue of being at the core of the conversation, you have the best visibility into the state of that patient and the state of that patient's care that also opens up a number of downstream opportunities, including, if there's a clinical trial that might be a good fit for this patient, being able to nudge the clinician, help them understand the various options that may be available, this patient that may not necessarily be obvious. There's a number of other use cases that we're collaborating with the Oncology Institute on. And I'm sure we'll be able to talk about more of those in the future.

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

Dr Virnich: Just in summary, I would add that, you know we're just beginning to scratch the surface on the use cases for generative AI and medical practice at the Oncology Institute. We've always prided ourselves in being early adapters of technology and innovation to drive improvements in community-based cancer care. So we're really excited about the partnership with ambience and the ability to continue to just expand the use case for this type of technology in delivering great care to patients and driving more efficient practice. So we can continue to grow and expand across the country.