Premier Health to Develop a “Virtual Medical Office Assistant” Using IBM Watson AI to Enable Employees to Focus on Higher-Value Work
Vancouver, BC – October 15, 2019 – Premier Health Group (CSE: PHGI) (OTCQB: PHGRF) (Frankfurt: 6PH) (the “Company” or “Premier Health”), a Company focused on developing innovative approaches that combine human skill-based expertise with emerging technologies for the healthcare industry, is pleased to announce it is working with IBM (NYSE:IBM) to help build and integrate Watson AI into its patient centric telemedicine app.
According to studies done by the American Medical Informatics Association and Research Gate respectively, activities that have nothing to do with patient care consume over half (51%) of a nurse’s workload and nearly a fifth (16%) of physician activities. Artificial intelligence (AI) based technologies, such as voice-to-text transcription, can improve administrative workflows and eliminate time-consuming non-patient-care activities.
Watson is IBM’s suite of enterprise-ready AI services, applications, and tooling. Watson capabilities include natural language processing, text, signal and image processing, machine learning, and other AI capabilities to help free employees from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more creative, higher-value work. The companies would like to develop a solution in which IBM can help build and integrate Watson Assistant as a virtual Medical Office Assistant (MOA) for Premier’s 4600 healthcare professionals servicing 3 million patients. It will initially focus on building conversational interfaces that will allow patients to interact with their medical office while enabling office staff to spend less time on the phone. A few examples include assistance with booking appointments, helping patients know what they should do to prepare for their next appointment and, eventually, help to triage patients to ensure those with medical emergencies will get the medical attention they require much faster.
“The future of health is being transformed with technologies like AI, and we are thrilled to be working with the experts at IBM,” said Dr. Essam Hamza, CEO of Premier Health. “As a doctor and previous clinic owner, I understand the frustrations patients have connecting with overstretched clinic staff. In addition, inefficient use of resources amount to increasing challenges in primary care. Our new initiative is curated for medical clinic owners and operators to reduce the burdensome overhead associated with day to day logistical operations while also improving patient care. The key for the future sustainability of healthcare is efficient and streamlined workflows and with the use of IBM’s cutting-edge AI technology, we have the power to completely disrupt and revolutionize the delivery of healthcare.”
As Premier Health continues on its patient-centric healthcare transformation, the company plans to further develop and expand its platform using analytics and AI capabilities from IBM Watson.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
“Dr. Essam Hamza, MD”
Chief Executive Officer
About Premier Health
Premier Health is a Canadian company that is strategically poised to take advantage of business opportunities in the global health care industry. We are focused on innovative health care approaches that combine human skill-based expertise with emerging technologies. In conjunction with its subsidiary Cloud Practice, which offers SAAS based health technology solutions including a cloud based Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software, medical billing software and an online patient portal, the Company is developing proprietary technology to deliver quality healthcare through the combination of connected primary care clinics, telemedicine, and artificial intelligence (AI). We currently have a combined ecosystem of 290 clinics, over 3000 licensed practitioners and almost 3 million registered patients. The Premier Health team has deep clinical, operational and financial expertise and a passion for improving healthcare for all patients.
The Canadian Securities Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:
Premier Health Group Inc.
www.mypremierhealth.com
Email: investors@mypremierhealth.com
Renmark Financial Communications Inc.
Bettina Filippone: bfilippone@renmarkfinancial.com
Tel:(416) 644-2020 or (514) 939-3989
Source: Premier Health Group