According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2020, physicians spend an average of 16 minutes and 14 seconds reviewing data and making notes using electronic health records during each patient visit. Addressing this issue, Navina, a New York-based medical tech company, has developed an artificial intelligence tool to help doctors save time and ensure important data doesn’t go unnoticed.
Navina, the platform created by the company, leverages generative AI to revolutionize how data informs the interaction between physicians and patients. Ronen Lavi, the CEO of Navina based in Israel, explained that the primary objective of introducing AI to the point of care was to make the patient-provider interaction more meaningful and effective by providing physicians with deep patient insights within their limited time.
Lavi expressed concern about the overwhelming burden faced by healthcare providers, stating that they must sift through an abundance of disorganized, non-chronological, and fragmented data from various sources and formats. He emphasized that AI has the capability to process large volumes of data from multiple sources and summarize complex medical terminology into simpler and concise terms.
Navina’s second goal is to equip clinicians with valuable insights that can shift healthcare from a reactive to a proactive approach. This proactive approach could aid in the early identification of disease risk factors, enable faster diagnoses, and potentially save lives. Lavi explained that Navina provides physicians with a comprehensive set of tools to make sense of clinical data at the point of care, either before or during the patient visit.
The third goal in developing Navina is to help doctors effectively utilize the data available to them and receive financial credit from value-based programs such as Medicare and Medicaid for the care they provide. Already at Central Virginia Family Physicians (CVFP), Navina has assisted doctors in identifying potentially life-threatening conditions such as diabetes with chronic complications, chronic kidney disease, and morbid obesity.
Dr. Jarrett Dodd, the medical director at CVFP in Lynchburg, Virginia, expressed concerns about staff burnout and sought a solution that would enable the 52 physicians at his practice to navigate electronic health records quickly and efficiently. After learning that the American Academy of Family Physicians Innovation Lab recognized Navina as an essential technology for reducing burnout among family doctors, Dr. Dodd decided to give it a try.
Dr. Dodd explained that Navina integrates with their electronic health record system and analyzes individual patient data, creating a “patient portrait” that makes important information more easily accessible during the point of care. The tool consolidates data from multiple sources, including lab results, imaging scans, and specialist notes, presenting it to the physician in a clear and concise manner. For instance, if a patient has recently been hospitalized, Navina would provide the discharge summary without the physician having to search for it. In the case of diabetic patients, Navina would present their most recent hemoglobin A1C test results, reflecting their average blood sugar levels, as well as any urine tests indicating potential kidney damage.
