How GE HealthCare Is Using AI To Revolutionize Every Aspect Of Patient Care

The global healthcare system faces two massive challenges: an overwhelming flood of patient data and widespread operational inefficiencies that drain resources and overtax medical professionals. GE HealthCare believes artificial intelligence is the key to solving both problems simultaneously – and they’re going all in on AI deployment across their organization.

“It’s transformative from my point of view,” says Taha Kass-Hout, Global Chief Science and Technology Officer at GE HealthCare. “Today about 97 percent of hospital system data goes largely untapped because it’s unstructured. It’s videos, it’s images, it’s wave streams and so much more.”

GE HealthCare isn’t just dipping its toes into AI – they’re diving in headfirst. GE HealthCare’s commitment to AI innovation is evident in its track record – they’ve topped the FDA’s list of AI-enabled device authorizations for three consecutive years with over 80 authorizations. The company has now set an ambitious goal to more than double that number to over 200 authorizations in just the next three years while also tripling its cloud-enabled product offerings.

Transforming Cancer Care With Multi-Agent AI

One of the most innovative projects is the Health Companion research initiative, which explores how multiple AI agents can mimic the collective expertise of a multidisciplinary cancer care team. Each AI agent specializes in a different medical domain - radiology, oncology, genetics, pathology, and more - analyzing patient data independently before a supervisory agent synthesizes their insights.

"Think about it in the most sophisticated cases - just to put a tumor board together can take weeks, sometimes even longer," explains Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, GE HealthCare's Global Chief Science and Technology Officer. The Health Companion project aims to dramatically reduce this timeline while democratizing access to expert-level cancer care analysis.

The vision for the system's practical capabilities extends beyond basic analysis. For example, the AI agents could distinguish between expected symptoms that occur as a function of treatment versus symptoms that might signal disease progression, such as cancer spread. When concerning patterns are detected, the system could alert the care team with suggested next steps, enabling more proactive and timely interventions. This functionality is being built with robust safety and explainability principles, ensuring that healthcare providers can understand and verify the AI's decision-making process.

Making Radiologists' Lives Easier

With radiologist shortages growing more acute while imaging volumes increase by 3-5% annually, GE HealthCare is developing sophisticated AI solutions to help specialists work more efficiently. Their full-body X-ray foundation model research project, trained on 1.2 million anonymized images, represents a significant breakthrough in medical imaging AI.

In preliminary tests, the model excels at three critical tasks: segmentation (dividing images into distinct anatomical parts), classification (categorizing images based on medical conditions), and visual localization (precisely identifying specific features like fractures or tumors). Beyond these core capabilities, GE HealthCare is testing the system to automatically generate detailed medical reports, potentially eliminating hours of administrative work.

"Imagine that you have one model that can do all this for you across all body structures," says Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, GE HealthCare's Global Chief Science and Technology Officer. Developed in partnership with Amazon Web Services, this technology aims to reduce cognitive burden on healthcare professionals while providing them with efficient and reliable diagnostic tools.

Additionally, GE HealthCare is developing specialized AI to help streamline mammography screenings, helping radiologists quickly identify normal cases - which comprise about 90% of all breast screening exams - so they can focus more attention on potentially suspicious cases.

CareIntellect: Streamlining Cancer Care

The company has also announced CareIntellect for Oncology, a new cloud-first application that consolidates multi-modal patient data into a single view. Planned for wide release in the U.S. in 2025 with subsequent expansion to Canada, U.K., and Ireland, this platform uses generative AI to transform how oncologists manage patient care.

Currently, physicians can spend hours getting up to speed on a patient's history and care status, especially for new patients. They must manually search through multiple databases and piece together information from various sources - including medical images, clinical notes, lab results, and device readings. CareIntellect aims to reduce this time-consuming process from several hours to just minutes.

The platform offers practical features that address daily clinical challenges. It can flag missed lab work that might delay the next round of treatment, track adherence to treatment protocols, and help match patients to potentially suitable clinical trials by automatically comparing their health records to trial criteria. The system also maintains compatibility with providers' existing single sign-on systems, eliminating the hassle of multiple log-ins.

Tampa General Hospital and UT Southwestern Medical Center are already serving as early evaluators of the technology. "We were impressed by how quickly GE HealthCare was able to design the application to include breast cancer in a matter of weeks," notes Dr. Peter Chang, Senior Vice President at Tampa General Hospital. "We look forward to putting this in the hands of our care teams and using the AI-enabled functionality to help clinicians spend time where it matters most—delivering outstanding patient care."

Addressing Global Healthcare Challenges

These innovations come at a crucial time for global healthcare. Nearly half of the world's population - approximately 4.5 billion people - currently lack adequate access to healthcare. Meanwhile, the healthcare workforce faces unprecedented challenges, with over 50% of physicians reporting burnout and hospitals experiencing 100% staff turnover every five years.

GE HealthCare is partnering with organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand AI-enabled portable ultrasound technology to underserved regions. By combining AI guidance with portable devices, they're working to enable non-specialist healthcare workers to deliver high-quality diagnostic services in remote locations.

The Future of AI in Healthcare

Looking ahead, GE HealthCare envisions AI becoming an integral part of every medical device and clinical workflow. They're also excited about emerging technologies like theranostics, which combines diagnostics and therapeutics to enable more personalized cancer treatments.

"AI has tremendous potential to help. However, for it to be safe and effective, it must be developed and practiced responsibly," emphasizes Dr. Kass-Hout. "Patient safety is top of mind."

The message is clear: AI isn't replacing healthcare workers - it's empowering them to work more efficiently and effectively while expanding access to quality care globally. With these innovations, GE HealthCare is working to create a future where healthcare has no limits.