Google teams up with Bayer to build AI system for radiologists to diagnose images, check medical history, and search papers

Google Cloud has partnered with pharmaceutical company Bayer to develop an AI-powered healthcare application for radiologists. The application will primarily analyze image data, which accounts for about 90% of medical data, and compare images of patients with previous ones, flag abnormalities in the images, and provide relevant medical information.

Bayer and Google Cloud to accelerate development of AI-powered healthcare applications for radiologists

#TeamBayer is dedicated to providing impactful #AI solutions to help radiologists reduce workload and provide accurate diagnoses. We're excited to announce our partnership with @googlecloud to accelerate the power of AI and better serve patient diagnoses. https://t.co/p5tBMQrfbL

— Bayer AG (@Bayer) April 9, 2024

Google partners with Bayer on new AI product for radiologists
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/google-partners-with-bayer-on-new-ai-product-for-radiologists.html

On April 9, 2024, Google Cloud and Bayer announced that they had entered into discussions on AI solutions to support radiologists. The two companies will work together to help accelerate the development of groundbreaking, impactful solutions that ultimately benefit patients by leveraging Google Cloud technologies, including tools based on generative AI.

Bayer says radiologists and other clinicians are facing burnout due to the overwhelming amount of work they handle every day, so to ease the burden on these medical professionals, the company is starting to use AI to take over repetitive tasks and provide insights into large data sets.

The initiative will use AI to analyze medical imaging data, which is essential for radiology departments. According to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, AI will be able to flag anomalies in the images and provide relevant information based on the patient's medical history. In addition, AI will be able to compare images of patients coming in for routine checkups with previous images and summarize the information.

The platform will be built on Google Cloud and will use tools such as Vertex AI, BigQuery, Healthcare API and Chronicle, with the first version for testing expected to be available in the EU and US in the second half of 2024.

'The goal of the AI is to give radiologists the information they need easily and save them 15 to 20 minutes searching through patient records,' said Kurian.

'Radiology plays a critical role in healthcare, and the need to efficiently and accurately uncover insights that can improve patient outcomes has never been greater,' said Nelson Ambrosio, president, Radiology, Bayer. 'Bayer has a decades-long tradition of contributing to research and innovation in radiology. Through our collaboration with Google Cloud, we will help build solutions that transform ever-increasing amounts of data into valuable, impactful insights, saving radiologists time while ultimately benefiting patients.'