Clinic group uses AI-based search engine to deepen digitalization

RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG, a large healthcare provider in Germany with 16,500 staff members, is collaborating with Austrian enterprise search and big data provider Mindbreeze, a subsidiary of Fabasoft AG.

The clinic group will use Mindbreeze’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based search engine technology. The application will enable the medical staff to orient themselves more quickly and lessen their workload.

Stephan Holzinger, CEO of RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG, says, “This new approach to medical information will help us to structure the increasing amount of data and enable the information to be analyzed and evaluated. This is another aspect in which digitalization presents a tangible benefit.”

The application, in the form of a central user interface called a “medical cockpit,” is being introduced first at the new Campus Bad Neustadt and is planned later at the group’s other clinics.

With the deployment, RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG is implementing an intelligent system for automatic document processing. The application can collect data from diverse and unstructured medical documents—medical reports, laboratory or surgical reports, radiology tests—glean what is relevant to the doctor in a precise, targeted way, and filter and prepare the data.

Using semantic analysis, the system supports information retrieval in heterogeneous and predominantly free text-based patient records, taking into account medical terminology and syntax as well as networked searching. That allows accurate detection of patterns in clinical findings, illnesses and medication and provides doctors with a quick overview of voluminous cases. All patient records and structured current patient data are presented to the physician chronologically on the medical cockpit.

Holzinger says, “Because of the consistently high level of regulatory and budgetary pressure, we strongly believe in the use of intelligent assistance systems for becoming even more efficient. That is the future—there is no getting around this, both in administrative processes like the clinical documentation and calculation of patient care services, as well as for diagnosis support. Accordingly, we are driving the digitalization strategy forward and are also incorporating telemedicine and robotics. Our new digital transformation department integrates the medical staff and other users extensively into this process—that is essential for internal acceptance.”