The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on Thursday launched Realyze Intelligence, an artificial-intelligence company that analyzes electronic health record data.
Realyze Intelligence's tools use natural language processing and other types of AI to analyze clinical notes and data held in patients' health records, from which it can identify patients with cancer, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and other chronic conditions who are at high risk for poor health outcomes.
Ideally, clinicians will apply the findings to prioritize care for those high-risk patients.
"For providers to give the most effective care, they need a complete understanding of their patients and all of their comorbidities," said Aaron Brauser, Realyze's president and chief executive officer, in a statement. He said that could result in cost savings for hospitals if patients avoid unplanned readmissions.
Brauser founded Realyze with Dr. Gilan El Saadawi, the company's chief medical officer, through UPMC Enterprises.
Realyze is just the latest spinoff from UPMC Enterprises, the health system's innovation and commercialization arm. UPMC in February launched Astrata, a company that sells analytics and natural language processing tools that assess population health and clinical quality from unstructured clinical data to health insurers.
Infectious Disease Connect, a spinoff focused on infectious disease care, last year acquired technology assets of Merck & Co. subsidiary ILÚM Health Solutions.
"Patients aren't defined by their primary diagnosis," El Saadawi said in a statement. "They are not just dealing with that one condition, but also many other factors that make them complex, and it currently is a manual, time-consuming effort to extract and use the relevant information from the (electronic medical record) to ensure effective care."
UPMC is one of many health systems that have been ramping up their AI work in recent years.
Nashville-based HCA Healthcare last week announced a multiyear partnership with Google's cloud arm to create analytics and AI tools to improve clinical workflow and care. Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic in April launched two technology companies, one of which plans to develop and commercialize AI algorithms for early disease detection.
