Amazon introduces AWS HealthScribe, a new generative AI-powered service that generates clinical documentation

In a bold move to take on tech giants Microsoft and Google, Amazon's cloud division has been actively testing its artificial intelligence offerings on thousands of customers.

On 26 July 2023, the company unveiled a new AI tool aimed at revolutionising customer service agents and healthcare technology. Among the latest offerings is AWS Healthscribe, a powerful app designed to transcribe and analyse conversations between doctors and patients. It provides a streamlined API for healthcare software providers, enabling automatic transcript generation and summaries.

What is AWS and how is it targeting healthcare industry?

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com, has announced the launch of ‘AWS HealthScribe,’ a groundbreaking and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) eligible service tailored to revolutionise clinical documentation in the healthcare industry.

The service empowers healthcare software providers to build clinical applications that utilise speech recognition and generative AI, ultimately saving clinicians valuable time in generating clinical documentation. It integrates generative AI into general medicine and orthopaedics applications, eliminating the need for complex machine learning infrastructure or specialised LLMs.

As a result, medical professionals can devote more time to patient care and less time to paperwork. The technology has already garnered interest from major healthcare players, such as the 3M unit, who plan to incorporate AWS Healthscribe into their medical operations.

With its easy-to-use API and robust AI capabilities, AWS HealthScribe aims to streamline healthcare workflows and improve patient care.

Apart from Amazon, several other companies are also embracing generative AI in the healthcare sector. Among them are UNC Health and Mayo, where Mayo have formed partnerships with Google. The collaboration aims to explore the potential of a new service called ‘Enterprise Search’ on Generative AI App Builder. By leveraging Google's advanced technology, this tool empowers clients to develop their own chatbots capable of sifting through vast amounts of diverse internal data.

Amazon Bedrock: A game-changer in the AI market

Amazon developed ‘Bedrock,’ a service that enables its cloud customers to construct apps using a diverse set of AI models, to demonstrate its dominance in the AI sector. This action is a clear response to competitors Microsoft and Google, both of which have made significant investments in generative AI technology. Microsoft has its own AI chatbot, Bing Chat, and has an important stake in OpenAI, the company behind the viral phenomenon ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, Google has its own generative AI-based chatbot called Bard, which it intends to integrate across several platforms. Amazon's Bedrock service seeks to provide organisations with a wide variety of AI models, outperforming competitors' offerings.

Several companies, including Sony, Ryanair, and Sun Life, have already tested Amazon Bedrock, confirming its potential influence on a wide range of sectors.

Amazon's collaboration with Nvidia

Amazon intends to establish itself as a leader in AI services by expanding its products and making them available to a larger variety of clients, using its position as the largest cloud provider by revenue. The partnership with Nvidia, a prominent participant in producing critical AI processors, demonstrates the company's dedication to being at the forefront of the AI race.

Sivasubramanian, Amazon's Vice President of Databases, Machine Learning, and Analytics, emphasised the company's solid collaboration with Nvidia to guarantee a seamless ramp-up timetable for AI technology integration.

As the AI companies become more competitive, Amazon makes tremendous advances to strengthen its position. The launch of AWS Healthscribe in the healthcare industry aims to revolutionise patient care and documentation, while the Amazon Bedrock service wants to equip enterprises with a varied set of AI models.