How Generative AI Helps Prevvy Reduce Health Disparities
Generative AI and Digital Patient journeys is an opportunity
to advance Health Equity
Health barriers driven by social determinants of health (SDOH) have worsened chronic disease management for patients dealing with chronic conditions, such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, COPD, etc. A Mayo Clinic study detected 2 health barriers implies 50% probability of patient with uncontrolled hypertension.
At Prevvy, we believe that everyone deserves to receive the healthcare they need, regardless of their ethnicity, language, or origin. That's why we are integrating generative AI into our digital therapy and recommendation systems.
José María Olmo Millán
Oct 19, 2023
How Generative AI Helps Prevvy Reduce Health Disparities
At Prevvy, we believe that everyone deserves to receive the healthcare they need, regardless of their ethnicity, language, or origin. That's why we are integrating generative AI into our digital therapy and recommendation systems.
Prevvy is using Generative AI to personalize reminders and recommendations for patients, based on their individual needs, including language, country of origin, ethnicity, city, climate, education, and tone of formality. This helps to address health disparities by making care more relevant and accessible to all patients.
For example, a medication reminder could be personalized to include a reference to the patient's traditional cuisine, or an exercise recommendation could be personalized to include a suggestion to visit a local park or beach that is popular in the patient's community, or it could be translated into Spanish for a patient who doesn't speak English.
How it works
Generative AI allows us to adapt Prevvy's reminders and recommendations to individual patient needs. For example, a reminder to take a medication could be personalized to include a reference to Cuban cuisine for a Cuban patient in Miami, or it could be translated into Spanish for a patient who doesn't speak English.
Evolution toward digitally-enable care model
The digitization of patient journeys culturally and linguistically adapted to the Hispanic population will reduce health disparities and patient experience in the US Hispanic population.
Better patient engagement and education are needed to improve adherence to chronic disease management, especially for patients with health barriers.
Digital patient journeys are a critical opportunity to apply language and culturally appropriate health policies that support health equity, health care quality, and efficiency.
Patients can improve their chronic care self-management when they know more about their chronic illnesses.
How Prevvy uses generative AI to reduce health disparities
Prevvy uses generative AI in two main components:
Prevvy Care planning system: Prevvy uses generative AI to personalize texts associated with activities in the patient journeys or digital therapies. This includes adapting texts for the care goals, activities, and resources of the patient journey to the individual needs of the patient.
Prevvy Recommendations system: Prevvy uses generative AI to generate personalized texts for recommendations for patients generated based on our Patient-Centered Clinical Decision support engine. These recommendations are based on the patient's clinical data, clinical and engagement guidelines as well as their preferences and goals.
How FHIR standards help define guidelines for patient journey and recommendation systems
Prevvy uses the FHIR Care Planning, Fhir Clinical Reasoning and Clinical Quality Language standards to define and distribute guidelines for patient journeys or digital therapies, and to generate personalized recommendations. These standards allow patient clinical data to be shared and reused across different healthcare systems and providers.
Specific examples of how generative AI helps Prevvy reduce health disparities
Here are some specific examples of how generative AI can be used to personalize Prevvy's reminders and recommendations to address health disparities:
A medication reminder could be personalized to include a reference to the patient's traditional cuisine.
A recommendation to exercise could be personalized to include a suggestion to visit a local park or beach that is popular in the patient's community.
A recommendation to eat more fruits and vegetables could include traditional recipes from the patient's culture.
Here are some specific examples of how generative AI can help individual patients:
Mexican patient in Houston:
Medication reminder: "Hi, [patient name]! Don't forget to take your blood pressure medication at 8:00 AM. How about taking it with a delicious Mexican breakfast, like chilaquiles or huevos rancheros?"
Exercise recommendation: "Why don't you visit Hermann Park this week? There you can find a walking or running trail, and there's also a lake where you can rent a paddle boat."
Nutrition recommendation: "Have you tried the barbacoa tacos from [restaurant name]? They're delicious! You can also find other traditional Mexican dishes at that restaurant."
Cuban patient in Miami:
Medication reminder: "Hi, [patient name]! Don't forget to take your diabetes medication at 10:00 AM. How about taking it with a Cuban coffee without sugar?"
Exercise recommendation: "Why don't you visit South Beach beach this afternoon? There you can swim, sunbathe, or walk on the sand."
Nutrition recommendation: "Have you tried the chicken and rice from [restaurant name]? It's a very flavorful traditional Cuban dish! You can also find other traditional Cuban dishes at that restaurant."
Conclusion
Generative AI is a powerful tool that can be used to personalize Prevvy's reminders and recommendations to meet the individual needs of patients. By adapting the text to the patient's name, city, climate, ethnicity, language, country of origin, diseases, and treatment adherence, Prevvy can help ensure that all patients receive the care they need.
Future work
Prevvy is working to further improve the ability of its systems to personalize reminders and recommendations. In the future, Prevvy plans to:
Generate personalized recommendations that take into account the social and economic factors that can affect the healthcare that patients receive.
Identify groups of patients who are at risk of experiencing health disparities and proactively adapt reminders and recommendations to address those needs.
By continuing to innovate in the use of generative AI and FHIR standards, Prevvy is committed to helping ensure that all patients receive the care they need.