How Gemini is Enhancing Patient Care in Japanese Hospitals
Ubie, a Japanese health tech startup, is leveraging the power of AI to revolutionize the experiences of both patients and healthcare workers.
Before joining the Ubie team, I worked as a neurologist. I was often overwhelmed by numerous clinical duties and mountains of paperwork, some of which had to be completed by hand. I often worried about how these administrative burdens affected the care and attention I could give to my patients. I was drawn to Ubie because their work is dedicated to helping healthcare professionals focus on what truly matters: spending quality time with their patients and creating more efficient administrative processes, such as medical record-keeping and referral writing.
Today, Ubie is developing products that utilize Google’s Gemini models – fine-tuned on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform – within real-world clinical settings. By working closely with Google, Ubie can fine-tune these advanced models to understand the complex nuances of Japanese healthcare. This allows the AI to employ voice recognition and summarization capabilities, alleviating the burden on doctors and nurses who are tasked with creating discharge summaries, referral letters, and informed consent documents.
This innovative technology is already making a significant difference in medium- to large-sized hospitals within rural areas of Japan:
- At Keiju General Hospital, the implementation of AI-powered discharge summary tools has led to a substantial decrease in the time nurses spend on these tasks, reducing it by 42.5%, while also decreasing their psychological burden by 27.2%. Further research showed that the impact was most significant for longer hospital stays, where nurses experience a higher cognitive load.
- At Yokokura Hospital, a medium-sized hospital located in Kyushu, voice transcription and summarization features powered by Gemini improved the efficiency of documenting patient explanations by 33%.
- In a trial conducted at Kyushu University Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in Japan, the summarization and standardization of referral letters resulted in a 54% increase in efficiency for doctors preparing admission summaries.
These improvements ultimately empower healthcare professionals to dedicate more time to their patients, leading to an overall enhancement in the quality of care. This is the fundamental reason I became a doctor.
Efficiency in healthcare is paramount in Japan, a nation grappling with an aging population and a shrinking workforce. Furthermore, securing administrative staff, especially in rural areas, presents a considerable challenge. These factors collectively place a significant operational strain on hospitals. AI can play a pivotal role in easing some of this burden, while also fostering tangible improvements in our workflow and enhancing the experience of our patients.
