BP integrates Lyrebird but there’s a bigger market opportunity for AI says the company.
A couple of university students are having their start-up dream come true as Best Practice integrates with AI health tech Lyrebird, but what does it mean for the sector?
Lyrebird is an artificial intelligence (AI) transcription tool specifically designed for healthcare. It was created by university mates Kai Van Lieshout and Linus Talacko, in a two-week student hackathon. Bp Premier is Best Practice’s patient management system used by an estimated 65% of general practices.
The partnership between the two providers is the first to see a generative AI tool be fully integrated into a practice management system. Neither of the key competitors, Telstra Health’s Medical Director nor the cloud-based MediRecords offer an integrated AI clinical notes tool feature.
Lyrebird Scribe automatically generates relevant medical documentation during a consultation.
Best Practice founder Frank Pyefinch said the Lyrebird integration allowed practitioners to “increase administrative efficiencies and reduce their time spent recording patient notes, both during and post consult”.
Danielle Bancroft, chief product officer at Best Practice, said the platform does not provide clinical decision-making support. Although Best Practice has “done bits and pieces around clinical decision support” she told HSD that GPs largely won’t trust using AI in that way just yet.
“The focus in the longer term is really trying to build trust – building out those AI models and the data the models are loading from.
“Then we can start to get more established, more intuitive ways of providing clinical decision support, where the clinician is still in control but they trust the data (clinical suggestions) are coming from,” she said.
Ms Bancroft told HSD that the real power, and market opportunity, of AI would not be at the diagnosis end.
“What no one’s looking at, in Australia at least, are the administrative workflows. The highest value gap is where you’ve got automating phone calls, booking appointments, all that stuff that happens in reception where you’re absolutely flogged for time and not paying attention to the patient.
“That’s where I believe your biggest value is. Right now it is the biggest gap,” Ms Bancroft said.
BP’s decision to hook up Lyrebird backs an undeniable trend for AI in healthcare. AI is being used with increasing confidence in diagnosis of imaging but many pundits say there is a danger of using generative AI in clinical decision support during consultations.
The Australian government has been repeatedly called take the lead regulating the incursion of generative AI. In January they released its interim response to the Safe and Responsible AI in Australia consultation, promising three “immediate actions” which they have given a high-level nod to in their recent Digital health Blueprint.
However, Australia’s response is well behind the global eight ball. In 2021 the European Union drafted The EU AI Act and a consensus on legislation apparently achieved in December last year.
Telstra Health’s Medical Director is the main competitor in the practice management arena but with a much poorer market share of around 25% compared to Best Practice’s estimated 65%.
MediRecords has tried valiantly to secure a slice of the GP market share with their unique cloud-based offering but is now catching different fish in the virtual and tertiary care space.
Lyrebird Scribe integration will go live this month in a Bp’s Orchid SP2 release. The tool uses AES-256 bit encryption and all information is stored de-identified on Australian based servers. Best Practice advise that patient data is only available to the practitioner.
The platform is browser-based and can be used as a standalone system and is a voice-to-text technology that uses speech recognition algorithms to convert medical dictation into written text.
According to Lyrebird developers, Lyrebird Scribe is equipped with an extensive medical vocabulary, provides real-time transcription, and also has customisation and integration features.