Liverpool Hospital explores GenAI cardiology solution

With cardiovascular disease responsible for one in four deaths across the nation, cardiologists play a critical role in Australia’s healthcare system. These specialists are challenged, however, by a constantly evolving field whose knowledge base is growing exponentially.

To address this challenge, Liverpool Hospital and Microsoft have collaborated on a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) solution to assist cardiologists in surveying the vast volume of cardiology-related literature and guidelines that aids decision-making in clinical practice.

Their prototype, ‘The Cardiology Canon’, allows a clinician to interact with an extensive body of literature from the field of cardiology. Built using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, it was programmed on clinical trials from the past 40 years, along with guidelines from eminent cardiac societies in Australia, Europe and the United States.

The Microsoft Technology Centre team processed more than 500 individual documents and 80,000 pages to create a cognitive vector search index and made the solution accessible via a web application.

“We worked with Microsoft technologists to create a bespoke prototype to allow cardiologists and anyone training in the field to query vast volumes of literature to answer clinical questions or make nuanced comparisons, traversing the significant body of literature,” said Dr Hao Tran, Cardiology Advanced Trainee at Liverpool Hospital.

“The solution also successfully generated a comprehensive six-day training program on aortic stenosis — a common clinical problem among patients — and generated comprehensive learning resources in hours, rather than days.

“It was presented at the Liverpool Cardiology Academy academic seminar with Microsoft collaborators Viren Joseph, Leon Smith and Daniel Xu and was championed by senior Liverpool Hospital cardiologists Professor Craig Juergens and Dr Sidney Lo. It’s been a truly collaborative project that I believe will greatly benefit cardiologists and patients,” Tran added.

Dr Simon Kos, Chief Medical Officer at Microsoft Australia and New Zealand, said the collaboration demonstrated the invaluable contribution of hospital clinicians in the sphere of innovation, with their feedback iteratively helping to refine the solution’s large language model to suit clinical need.

“We’re excited to collaborate with Liverpool Hospital on this initiative and unlock the incredible potential of generative AI in health care. This innovative approach is empowering the hospital’s cardiologists to stay ahead in their field, ensuring the highest standard of patient care,” Kos said.

The announcement follows a new report by Microsoft and the Tech Council of Australia highlighting generative AI’s economic and productivity opportunities for Australia. Health care is identified as one of four key economic sectors poised to benefit from the technology, potentially contributing $5–13 billion in value annually to the sector in Australia by 2030.

According to the report, generative AI can automate 25% and augment 5% of nursing tasks, allowing nurses to spend more one-on-one time with patients. It also estimates that 30% of new drugs could be discovered using the technology by 2025.

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