Dr. Anthony Mazzarelli, the CEO of Cooper University Health Care in New Jersey and an ER physician as well, spoke with Fox News Digital about how Nuance's AI tool is helping physicians focus more on patients and less on paperwork. As the artificial intelligence train barrels on with no signs of slowing down -- some studies have even predicted that AI will grow by more than 37% per year between now and 2030 -- the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued an advisory calling for "safe and ethical AI for health." The agency recommended caution when using "AI-generated large language model tools (LLMs) to protect and promote human well-being, human safety and autonomy, and preserve public health." ChatGPT, Bard and Bert are currently some of the most popular LLMs. In some cases, the chatbots have been shown to rival real physicians in terms of the quality of their responses to medical questions.

A new study led by faculty at the University of Georgia demonstrates the potential of using artificial intelligence to transform tuberculosis treatment in low-resource communities. And while the study focused on TB patients, it has applications across the health care sector, freeing up health care workers to perform other necessary tasks. Growing evidence has demonstrated the potential for AI to increase productivity, reduce health care worker burnout, and improve quality of care in clinical settings. The study, which was published last month in the Journal of Medical Internet Research AI, pilots the use of AI to watch thousands of submitted videos of TB patients taking their medication. This application could automate the job of a health care worker watching a patient take their pill at a clinic, known as directly observed therapy (DOT).

With the right technology solutions, companies can aim to relieve rising levels of burnout among health care workers. More than two years into the pandemic, depleted health care workers have been pushed to their limits. In the U.S., we're experiencing what Becker's Hospital Review has described as "an unprecedented nursing shortage." Overworked and risking their own health -- both physical and mental -- to provide care throughout multiple surges of COVID-19, nurses are in crisis. Many are leaving the profession -- and the problem is global.

The Supreme Court has dealt a major blow to the Biden administration, ending a White House requirement that employees at large businesses get a vaccine or test regularly and wear a mask on the job. The court's conservative majority concluded the administration overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's vaccine-or-test rule on U.S. businesses with at least 100 employees. At the same time, the court is allowing the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most health care workers in the U.S., resulting in a mixed decision for the administration. Reacting to the ruling, Psaki hailed the decision allowing mandates for health care workers as "good news," saying the administration will continue to enforce it. On the OSHA ruling, Psaki said the White House will "continue to call on businesses to immediately join those those who have already stepped up, including one third of Fortune 100 companies, to institute vaccination requirements to protect their workers, customers and communities."

As COVID-19 began surging across the globe in the early months of 2020, it almost immediately flooded health care providers with challenges and demands the industry had never before seen. Suddenly doctors' offices were closed to patients, hospital emergency departments and ICUs were running out of beds, and healthcare workers were battling a new and unknown disease. Today, in the waning months of 2021, some of these pressures have eased, while others keep coming back along with the Delta variant. Either way, the insights they produced remain vitally important. Lessons learned during this stressful time have already inspired fundamental changes in healthcare--changes that are here to stay.

Background: Health care systems are currently undergoing a digital transformation that has been primarily triggered by emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, 5G, blockchain, and the digital representation of patients using (mobile) sensor devices. One of the results of this transformation is the gradual virtualization of care. Irrespective of the care environment, trust between caregivers and patients is essential for achieving favorable health outcomes. Given the many breaches of information security and patient safety, today's health information system portfolios do not suffice as infrastructure for establishing and maintaining trust in virtual care environments. Objective: This study aims to establish a theoretical foundation for a complex health care system intervention that aims to exploit a cryptographically secured infrastructure for establishing and maintaining trust in virtualized care environments and, based on this theoretical foundation, present a proof of concept that fulfills the necessary requirements. Methods: This work applies the following framework for the design and evaluation of complex intervention research within health care: a review of the literature and expert consultation for technology forecasting. A proof of concept was developed by following the principles of design science and requirements engineering. Results: This study determined and defined the crucial functional and nonfunctional requirements and principles for enhancing trust between caregivers and patients within a virtualized health care environment. The cornerstone of our architecture is an approach that uses blockchain technology. The proposed decentralized system offers an innovative governance structure for a novel trust model. The presented theoretical design principles are supported by a concrete implementation of an Ethereum-based platform called VerifyMed. Conclusions: A service for enhancing trust in a virtualized health care environment that is built on a public blockchain has a high fit for purpose in Healthcare 4.0. As a result of health care development, societies are undergoing a current demographic shift--people live longer, and fewer are born. The overall increase in life expectancy between 1970 and 2013 was 10.4 years on average for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries [1].

With the Covid-19 pandemic hitting hard and social distancing becoming a vital norm, this opens the door for using more robots to provide health care services to reduce in-person contact between the health care workers and the patients. Giovanni Traverso, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and also the senior author of the study said, that they were actively working on robots that can help provide health care services to maximize the safety, of both the patients and the health care workforce. Traverso and his colleagues after the Covid-19 began last year, worked towards reducing interaction between the patients and the health care workers. In this process, they collaborated with Boston Dynamics in creating mobile robots that can interact with patients who waited in the emergency department. But the question here is, how patients are going to respond to the robots?

In the era of social distancing, using robots for some health care interactions is a promising way to reduce in-person contact between health care workers and sick patients. However, a key question that needs to be answered is how patients will react to a robot entering the exam room. Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital recently set out to answer that question. In a study performed in the emergency department at Brigham and Women's, the team found that a large majority of patients reported that interacting with a health care provider via a video screen mounted on a robot was similar to an in-person interaction with a health care worker. "We're actively working on robots that can help provide care to maximize the safety of both the patient and the health care workforce. The results of this study give us some confidence that people are ready and willing to engage with us on those fronts," says Giovanni Traverso, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the senior author of the study.

Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital recently set out to answer that question. In a study performed in the emergency department at Brigham and Women's, the team found that a large majority of patients reported that interacting with a health care provider via a video screen mounted on a robot was similar to an in-person interaction with a health care worker. "We're actively working on robots that can help provide care to maximize the safety of both the patient and the health care workforce. The results of this study give us some confidence that people are ready and willing to engage with us on those fronts," says Giovanni Traverso, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the senior author of the study. In a larger online survey conducted nationwide, the researchers also found that a majority of respondents were open to having robots not only assist with patient triage but also perform minor procedures such as taking a nose swab.

As technology and automation rapidly remake a very different future of work, some economists predict that women will benefit the most from the coming disruptions. Although women have no doubt been hardest hit by the COVID-19 economy, in the coming years, women-dominated caring jobs--like nursing, teaching, and providing child and elder care--that aren't easily replaced by machines will be among the fastest-growing occupations and thus more likely to be "future-proof." It's not that many women's jobs won't be automated away. Just as men-dominated mechanical and machine operating jobs are predicted to disappear, so too are women-dominated administrative and clerical jobs. But most of these future-of-work predictions assume women will continue to dominate the care economy. And all because men aren't expected to care.