In the rapidly evolving landscape of public health, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a game-changing tool that promises to revolutionize how we approach the public health workforce and data modernization challenges. At Flourish and Thrive Labs, we’re at the forefront of this transformation, working at the intersection of AI and public health to create innovative solutions that truly make a difference, particularly in the realm of Electronic Case Reporting (eCR).

The Challenge: Doing More with Less

Public health departments nationwide face common challenges: shrinking budgets, increasing demands, and vacancies in their workforce. According to the NACCHO Profile Report, many health departments have never fully recovered from budget cuts following the 2008 economic crisis. The temporary influx of federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic has now dried up, exacerbating the financial strain.

Moreover, recruiting and retaining qualified staff has become increasingly difficult. Public health professionals find themselves stretched thin, wearing multiple hats and struggling to meet the diverse needs of their communities. This perfect storm of financial constraints and workforce challenges threatens the ability of health departments to fulfill their crucial missions, particularly in areas requiring rapid response and data analysis, such as disease surveillance and reporting.

AI for Electronic Case Reporting: A Game-Changer in Public Health

Electronic Case Reporting (eCR) is critical to modern public health surveillance. It’s designed to automate the reporting of potential cases of reportable conditions from electronic health records (EHRs) to public health agencies. However, implementing eCR has brought its own challenges.

Traditional eCRs, while an improvement over fax and phone systems, often present data in a format that’s difficult for humans to interpret quickly. Public health professionals spend valuable time sifting through complex eCR data, trying to extract the critical information needed for case investigation and management.

This is where AI comes in, revolutionizing how we handle eCRs:

1. Rapid Data Extraction: AI can process eCRs in seconds, extracting key information such as patient demographics, symptoms, lab results, and provider details.
2. Intelligent Summarization: The AI system presents a clear, concise summary of each case, allowing public health professionals to quickly grasp the essential details.
3. Automated Triage: AI can categorize cases based on urgency and completeness of information, helping prioritize follow-up actions.
4. Suggestion of Next Steps: AI can suggest appropriate follow-up questions or actions based on the case details, supporting more efficient case management.
5. Integration with Existing Systems: Our AI solution seamlessly integrates with existing disease surveillance systems, ensuring a smooth workflow.

By leveraging AI for eCR processing, public health departments can significantly reduce the time spent on data interpretation, allowing staff to focus on critical tasks that require human expertise and judgment.

Enter AI: Augmenting Intelligence in Public Health

The solution to these challenges lies not in replacing human expertise but in augmenting it. AI, or as we prefer to call it, “augmented intelligence,” has the potential to revolutionize public health practices, particularly in areas like eCR processing. By taking on time-consuming tasks, AI can free up public health professionals to focus on what they do best: building relationships, providing empathetic care, and making critical decisions that require human judgment.

At Flourish and Thrive Labs, we believe in putting people first. Our approach to AI in public health is centered on supporting and empowering the dedicated professionals who form the backbone of our health departments. We understand that AI is a tool, not a replacement for human expertise and compassion.

By implementing AI solutions for eCR and other public health functions, we aim to:

1. Reduce administrative burden: AI can handle routine data processing and reporting tasks, allowing staff to focus on high-value activities.
2. Enhance decision-making: By providing rapid access to analyzed eCR data and insights, AI supports more informed and timely decision-making.
3. Improve work-life balance: By taking on time-consuming tasks like eCR processing, AI can help reduce overtime and burnout among public health staff.
4. Foster professional growth: With AI handling routine tasks, staff can focus on developing new skills and taking on more challenging, rewarding work.

Our people-first approach ensures that AI implementation always supports and empowers public health professionals, not replaces them.

The Technology Behind AI-Powered Electronic Case Reporting

At Flourish and Thrive Labs, we’ve developed a cutting-edge, secure cloud environment using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to revolutionize how public health agencies handle Electronic Case Reports (eCRs). Our system leverages the power of generative AI to tackle the overwhelming flood of detailed eCR data that agencies now receive for reportable conditions. This environment is fully compliant with HIPAA privacy and security rules, ensuring that sensitive health data is protected at all times.

Here’s a comprehensive overview of our system, balancing technical sophistication with practical applications:

1. Amazon Bedrock: This is the cornerstone of our AI system. Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that provides access to state-of-the-art foundation models (FMs) through an API. It allows us to process eCRs without retaining any of the data provided as context, ensuring data privacy and security. Our process is model-agnostic, allowing for flexibility and future enhancements.
2. Prompt Engineering: We use advanced prompt engineering techniques to instruct the AI on what specific information to extract from eCRs. This allows us to ask targeted questions like, “Is this COVID-19 patient hospitalized and on vasopressors?” or “Has this patient traveled outside the US in the past 2 weeks?” Our expert public health team has extensively tested these prompts to ensure we ask the right questions for different reportable conditions.
3. Knowledge Bases for Amazon Bedrock: We enhance our AI’s capabilities by integrating Knowledge Bases. This feature allows us to incorporate domain-specific information, such as treatment guidelines or local health regulations, into the AI’s decision-making process. It’s like giving our digital assistant a comprehensive, instantly accessible medical library to reference while it works. Imagine being able to keep up with the latest guidance for infectious diseases as you determine next steps.
4. Data Extraction and Validation Workflow:
   • The eCR document is submitted to the AI model on Amazon Bedrock along with our custom prompts.
   • The model processes the eCR and extracts the requested data elements.
   • Extracted data is validated against the Knowledge Bases to ensure accuracy and completeness.
5. Interactive Interface: Public health professionals can interact with the AI system through a user-friendly interface, asking questions about specific eCRs and receiving instant responses. It’s like having a knowledgeable colleague available 24/7 to help interpret complex eCR data.
6. Data Integration: The validated data elements are seamlessly integrated into the agency’s disease surveillance systems using secure APIs, significantly reducing the time staff spend on reporting and organizing data.

By leveraging these advanced technologies, we create a robust, secure, and efficient AI system tailored to the unique needs of public health departments, with a special focus on enhancing eCR processing. This approach not only saves time but also helps agencies focus their limited resources where they’re needed most. It’s a prime example of how advanced technology can be applied to real-world challenges, making our response to public health threats faster and more effective than ever before.

Our system demonstrates the power of augmented intelligence in public health, where cutting-edge AI technology enhances, rather than replaces, human expertise. By automating time-consuming data processing tasks, we free up public health professionals to focus on critical analysis, decision-making, and community engagement – the aspects of their work that truly require human insight and empathy.

The Benefits of AI for Electronic Case Reporting (ECR)

Our system is designed to enhance, not replace, the crucial role of public health professionals in managing reportable conditions. By applying AI to eCR processing, we’re addressing one of the most time-consuming and data-intensive tasks in public health surveillance. Here’s how our augmented intelligence approach is transforming eCR:

1. Rapid Data Extraction: Our AI system can process eCRs and extract key information in seconds, potentially saving public health professionals 20 minutes or more per case. This means that critical data from hundreds of eCRs can be processed in the time it would take a human to manually review just a handful.
2. Cost-Effective Processing: The cost of processing a single eCR using AI is less than $0.01, making it an incredibly cost-effective solution for budget-constrained health departments. This efficiency allows departments to handle increased eCR volumes without straining resources.
3. Consistent Information Extraction: AI consistently extracts and summarizes information from eCRs, reducing the risk of human error in data interpretation. This reliability ensures that public health professionals have accurate, standardized data to work with, regardless of the volume of incoming eCRs.
4. AI-Assisted Decision Support: By quickly providing relevant information from eCRs and even suggesting follow-up questions, our AI supports public health professionals in triaging cases and making informed decisions more rapidly. For instance, it can flag high-priority cases that require immediate attention based on specific criteria.
5. Enhanced Focus on Critical Tasks: By automating the time-consuming task of eCR processing, our AI frees up public health professionals to focus on high-value activities that require human expertise and empathy. This could mean more time for case investigations, contact tracing, or developing targeted interventions based on the insights gleaned from eCR data.

Through this augmented intelligence approach to eCR, we’re not just improving efficiency – we’re enhancing the entire disease surveillance process. Public health professionals can now work smarter, leveraging AI to handle the data deluge while they focus on interpreting results, making critical decisions, and taking action to protect community health.

Our system demonstrates that in the realm of eCR, AI and human expertise are not competing forces, but complementary strengths. By combining the speed and consistency of AI with the insight and judgment of experienced public health professionals, we’re creating a more responsive, effective public health surveillance system.

The Importance of Human Oversight

While AI offers tremendous potential, especially in areas like eCR processing, it’s crucial to remember that it’s a tool to augment human intelligence, not replace it. Public health professionals play a vital role in overseeing AI outputs, ensuring accuracy, and making final decisions based on their expertise and understanding of local contexts.

As AI technology continues to advance, we envision even more applications in public health beyond eCR processing. From automating routine communications to analyzing community health data for trends and insights, the possibilities are vast. However, the key to successful implementation will always be the thoughtful integration of AI tools with human expertise.

What now?

Are you ready to explore how AI can augment your public health department’s capabilities, particularly in streamlining eCR processing? At Flourish and Thrive Labs, we specialize in developing custom AI solutions for local public health agencies that actually help. We would love to find a time to meet with you to talk about how we can implement a system like this for your organization.