Worcester Business Journal

80 Worcester Business Journal | October 28, 2024 | wbjournal.com WBJ BY SLOANE M. PERRON Special to WBJ T he proliferation of artificial intelligence and home health care, and the introduction of delivery drones are just some of the tools expected to change the future of medicine in Central Massachusetts and beyond. Dr. Matilde "Mattie" Castiel, Worcester commissioner of Health and Human Ser- vices, believes that AI is the technological advancement that will impact health care the most. "AI will guide people into a diagnosis, and what I worry about is that people will just accept the diagnosis," she said. "We've always been taught in medicine that if somebody does a physical exam and you're next to see that patient you repeat and verify. "I worry that when you're in a hurry if AI says this is the diagnosis, that people may take the diagnosis as is." In addition to cautioning about overreli- ance on AI, Castiel believes it is important to preserve human contact and provider/ patient relationships as technology evolves. Another tool Castiel would like to see flourish over the coming decade is the Fast forward: 2034 | Health care Drones and AI raise hopes and concerns 10 predictions about the future of healthcare AI 1: The future of large language models is multi modal. 2: Data annotator physicians will be the unsung heroes of the AI revolution. 3: AI will not replace or make specialties vanish. 4: AI will primarily take over repetitive and data-based tasks. 5: AI will find unusual biomedical associations. 6: You will need to find a common language with AI to understand its progress. 7: Prompt engineering will be the key in the generative AI era. 8: The rise of AI will widen the health equity gap. 9: Adaptive AI and generative AI will get new regulatory categories. 10: Medicine and health care will struggle to adapt and filter deepfakes. Source: The Medical Futurist, April 2024 Dr. Matilde "Mattie" Castiel, Worcester commissioner of Health and Human Services COURTESY CITY OF WORCESTER recently launched Worcester Integrated Health Data Exchange, a first-of-its-kind collaboration with UMass Chan Medical School focused on collecting local data to reduce healthcare inequities. During the pandemic COVID-19 testing numbers were shared between hospitals allowing them to see which neighborhoods were the least vaccinated. is allowed the city's Public Health Department to bring resources into targeted areas. "I look forward to the future of that col- laboration," Castiel said. "at we all work together in the same way, and then we don't have to have a pandemic to do that." Dr. Apurv Soni is co-director of the Pro- gram in Digital Medicine at UMass Chan and part of the new Health AI Assurance Laboratory. He also serves as senior physi- cian architect for UMass Memorial Health's Center for Digital Health Solutions. Soni is excited to see how technology that the public is already using such as ChatGPT, Amazon's Alexa, and Zoom will be used to bring care to rural areas or patients in the comfort of their homes. "e last decade has been getting the technologies to really catch up toward what is needed," he said. "And now the next de- cade is going to be, how does the workforce catch up with the technology, and how do we use it properly?" One key advantage of AI is alleviating the burdensome paperwork that oen consumes providers' schedules and adds to burnout. "No one went into this field with a passion for doing all the administrative work which is really a function of how com- plicated our health system is to get paid," Soni said. "So, technology can help with making life easier and by making the workforce more efficient." In 2034, providing healthcare at home will be a routine model of care. Wearable sensors, smartwatches, and audio listening devices (Alexa, Google Home) will report worsening symptoms of in-home patients in real time, allowing healthcare teams to make life-saving decisions. A medical team could be dispatched to the home or a telehealth call could be made. is would save patients stress and time while expanding accessibility. ese models are being researched and are expected to be- come a solution for overcrowded hospitals. Another innovation that might have sounded like science fiction not long ago is the use of drones for medication delivery. e Cleveland Clinic announced plans to begin delivering specialty prescriptions across Northeast Ohio as early as 2025. "Drone technology is rapidly advancing, and so it is not unfathomable that this is a reality in 2034. I will add, however, that areas where this is needed more urgently are more rural and remote regions," Soni said. Dr. Apurv Soni, co-director of the Program in Digital Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School COURTESY UMASS CHAN MEDICAL SCHOOL Zipline, a global leader in drone delivery systems, is partnering with U.S. health systems like the Cleveland Clinic, which could begin prescription deliveries via drone as early as next year. COURTESY ZIPLINE 35th Anniversary

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