Fraser Health Authority in Surrey, British Columbia, has implemented generative artificial intelligence (AI) to support clinical documentation within the MEDITECH Expanse EHR system.

The health authority is leveraging Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and large language models (LLMs) for this purpose.

It is a pilot site for the clinical documentation use case that was unveiled early in 2023. This emphasises the narrative of the hospital course at the time of discharge.

Under the pilot, the health authority will deploy Google Cloud's generative AI tools to automatically generate the first draft of the hospital course. This summary will be included in the Expanse discharge process.

Clinicians will review and edit the discharge plan draft before finalising it, simplifying the documentation process.

Being the largest health authority in British Columbia, Fraser Health serves over 1.9 million individuals in 20 communities.

The health system is presently using Expanse as the core of its digital transformation, and the initial three sites are already operational.

MEDITECH EVP and COO Helen Water said: “As leaders in innovation, Fraser is reimagining how care is delivered. They recognise the ability of technology to transform care, and we are pleased to work with them to pioneer this use case with the goal of improving the clinician experience.”

Since 2021, MEDITECH and Google Cloud have collaborated on AI efforts.

Google Health senior clinical specialist Peter Clardy said: “Leveraging AI to streamline the discharge summarisation process can save providers a lot of valuable time. We look forward to seeing the results and the benefits of this technology at Fraser Health.”