#Japan #AWS Japan #Open Group #Asahikawa

Leveraging AI for Healthcare Efficiency at Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital

Open Corporation, a subsidiary of Open Group located in Minato Ward, Tokyo, has partnered with AWS Japan to carry out a groundbreaking demonstration project aimed at optimizing medical documentation processes at Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital in Hokkaido. This project employs generative AI technology for voice recognition, specifically targeting the automatic creation of informed consent forms and conference minutes.

Background and Purpose of the Experiment

The initiative comes at a time when Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital has been striving to improve operational efficiency using Open's RPA tool, BizRobo!. However, with the introduction of new work-style reform regulations for doctors in April 2024, alongside the challenges posed by an aging population and decreasing workforce, there has arisen a pressing need for further reform in the medical field. Thus, Open aims to implement additional digital transformation (DX) in healthcare, focusing on providing high-quality medical services continuously.

To overcome the current challenges, Open collaborated with AWS Japan, known for its secure cloud infrastructure, to explore the potential impacts of AI on hospital workflows. This innovative experiment will record audio data from informed consent discussions and daily conferences at Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital, processing it through a fully managed automatic speech recognition (ASR) service called Amazon Transcribe, integrated with a private AI foundation called Amazon Bedrock. After transcribing the audio, Amazon Bedrock will summarize and format the data to produce automatic documentation.

The recording of IC (Informed Consent) and conference discussions is crucial as they require involvement from multiple medical staff and contribute significantly to the quality of care by informing treatment and care strategies for patients. This task, however, has placed a burden on healthcare staff, necessitating urgent automation and efficiency improvements in their workflow.

Overview of the Demonstration Project

• - Location: Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital
• - Duration: March 2025 to July 2025
• - Contents of Implementation:

1. BizRobo! collects audio data and necessary information from electronic health records.
2. The collected data is linked to Amazon Transcribe by BizRobo!, along with accompanying data entries.
3. Amazon Transcribe generates text transcriptions, which Amazon Bedrock then turns into formatted minutes based on the IC and conference content.
4. Medical personnel collaborate with Amazon Transcribe and Amazon Bedrock in creating minutes using the same information as a basis.
5. The resulting documents are compared, and adjustments are made to AI prompts and algorithms for tuning discrepancies.
6. This process is repeated to enhance accuracy further.

Expected Benefits and Future Prospects

Open and AWS Japan will assess the outcomes of this experiment utilizing three key indicators:
1. Quality and Safety in Healthcare: Verifying if the electronic health record is cited correctly, terminologies used are appropriate, and minutes are generated in the right format for interdisciplinary collaboration within the hospital.
2. Reduction in Administrative Burden: Evaluating how much time can be saved in comparison to previous minute-writing procedures.
3. Contributions Towards Work Style Reforms: Estimating the potential improvements in reducing overtime for hospital staff and in effective task shifting.

Although robust validation is still forthcoming, anecdotal evidence from the hospital suggests that the time taken to create minutes has already been reduced by approximately 30-60%.

Open has a history of customizing last-mile solutions for medical institutions on-site with engineers, enhancing the integration of AI not only for basic functionalities but also as an agent that supports human decision-making, aiming for workflow optimization.

Looking to the future, Open plans further advancements in the integration of RPA and AI, including the automatic creation of discharge summaries, nursing summaries, medical information provision documents, and other functionalities, such as OCR integration and medication reconciliation. These efforts are aimed not only at transforming workflows at Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital but also at contributing to building a robust regional healthcare system.

Commentary from AWS Japan

Hiroyuki Oba, Head of Healthcare Business at AWS Japan, commented on the significance of this collaboration: "This undertaking with Open and Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital represents a critical exploration into the future of work for healthcare professionals. We are honored to support this initiative by providing services like Amazon Bedrock and hope that the results will serve as a model case for enhancing healthcare quality through advanced technology."

About Open Corporation

• - Website: Open Corporation
• - Headquarters: KDX Nishi-Shimbashi Building, 3rd Floor, 3-3-1 Nishi-Shimbashi, Minato, Tokyo
• - Established: July 2013
• - CEO: Takayuki Ishii
• - Capital: 300 million yen
• - Business Areas: Information processing services using smart robotics (RPA, AI), consulting, outsourcing, digital marketing, and online advertising.
• - Sapporo Office: 9th Floor, Kawakado Oodori Building, 1-14-2 Oodori Nishi, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido.