Vendor Notebook: New AI for Employee Turnover, Mental Health Robots, and More
Artificial intelligence tools are helping frontline doctors diagnose skin cancer, home care providers are retaining employees, and hospital doctors are getting early warnings about potential patient mental health episodes in the stories we read this week.
Solventum announced that it is now using AI to reverse revenue cycle processes and proactively address rejections. Through a new partnership with Ava, an enterprise AI platform, WellSky has enabled a major home healthcare provider to improve employee engagement and reduce turnover using tools integrated into electronic health records.
Meanwhile, researchers at San Diego State University used grant funding to equip and test AI-powered robots for mental health care, while the use of an accelerated medical device in general practice highlighted the importance of post-market research.
Preventing rejections within workflows
Solventum and Sift on Monday announced a machine learning integration that will intervene in coding and prebill validation at the front end of the healthcare revenue cycle.
The new revenue integrity system is designed to help health care systems reduce potential denials and ensure timely and accurate payer reimbursement, the companies said.
Although healthcare organizations cite claim denials as the top revenue cycle management challenge, moving to a proactive strategy can help them avoid denials in the clinical workflow, said Garri Garrison, president of health information systems at Solventum, formerly 3M Healthcare.
“While healthcare systems are increasingly experiencing write-offs due to the growing burden of denials, the current reactionary approach of relying on claims data to reverse engineer denials is not working,” he said in a statement.
Community Medical Centers of Fresno told Healthcare IT news in March that the company began using AI to reduce the number of denied claims.
“Having this tool allowed us to stop claims on the front end, giving us one last chance to resolve outstanding items that could lead to a denial,” said Eric Eckhart, the provider’s director of patient financial services.
Advancing robots in mental health care
With a $5 million grant from the Brown Foundation, SDSU researchers are taking their robots, Pepper and Bernard, to the next level of emotional sensitivity.
Dr. Aaron Elkins, director of the center, told NBC San Diego earlier this month that researchers are working on artificial intelligence that could act as an early warning system for a mental health event. Such personalized therapeutic robots can alert a doctor to the possibility of a psychological episode.
“A machine might be able to see changes in your pupil, hear the pitch of your voice change, or something happens that makes it sense that you might be in a certain condition that needs some kind of intervention,” Elkins said in the story.
The center collaborates with hospitals in the region and tests the technology to diagnose diseases and conditions in clinical trials.
Previous studies have shown that patients appreciate robots when it comes to healthcare delivery.
AI to detect skin cancer
Last week it was reported that a new AI device will give primary care doctors the power to diagnose skin cancer, address access barriers in dermatology and avoid long wait times for dermatology referrals.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared Miami-based DermaSensor, the first AI-based medical device for skin cancer detection in primary care. Assessed under the De Novo process, the approval was considered a milestone, according to the report story in Dermatology times.
The device had a sensitivity of 96% detect skin cancer in one study, Reuters said in January after FDA approval.
Although an additional study found that the device could help guide lesion treatment, potentially reducing unnecessary referrals, a third clinical usability study showed a significant decrease in specificity for referrals.
The device’s efficacy in patient populations – particularly those historically underrepresented in clinical trials – is unclear and warrants continued post-market research to ensure equal performance and monitor diagnostic accuracy, according to the story.
Tackling employee turnover
To alleviate pressure on home care providers, Griswold, one of the nation’s largest home care franchises with more than 170 locations in 32 states and more than 9,000 caregivers, has reduced turnover across the company’s eight offices using AI for engagement of employees.
According to Victor Hunt, Ava’s co-founder and CEO, the home care workforce turnover rate is 77%.
“Ava is working to remove the burden of administrative work and reconnect caregivers and home care administrators with why they chose a career in healthcare in the first place,” he said in a announcementwith WellSky, a home healthcare EHR provider, last month.
But revenue isn’t just about pay. Departing caregivers say they might have stayed with better engagement and communication, the EHR vendor said.
Ava’s algorithms help predict caregiver turnover and proactively guide employee retention, reliability and recruitment through gamification, WellSky said. With the integration of an AI-powered employee engagement tool into the EHR, Griswold reported that employee turnover dropped by 13% in seven months.
“The workforce crisis facing our customers and the industry at large is a major concern, both for people seeking home care and for agencies trying to meet that need,” Wes Little, head of analytics at WellSky, said in the statement .
Ava’s communication also helped Griswold’s caregivers clock in and out on time and meet minimum weekly hour requirements.
“We have seen tremendous benefits from using WellSky TeamEngage powered by Ava, both in retaining talented employees and differentiating our agency,” said Caitlin Griffith, Griswold’s director of people and culture, in a statement.
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.