STAT+: ASCO and Google create ‘walled garden’ AI tool for doctors to query group’s guidelines
ASCO and Google Cloud's AI tool is meant to help oncologists query just its trusted cancer treatment guidelines, without extraneous information.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology, the largest professional organization in cancer care, announced Wednesday that it had partnered with Google Cloud to develop an AI-based tool to help physicians rapidly question the organization’s guidelines on best practices in diagnosing and treating cancer.
Clifford Hudis, a breast cancer oncologist who is ASCO’s CEO, said that members have long said that the content in ASCO’s practice guidelines is incredibly useful, as it is based on the consensus of some of the top researchers in the field, but it is hard to access.
“We had this paradox where our content is really high-quality and trusted, but hard to approach and to use,” Hudis told STAT in an interview. “And that was the problem we wanted to solve. We wanted to make it easy for our members and the community to find what they were looking for easily and, in pursuit of that, we were fortunate to be able to partner with our colleagues at Google Cloud and create this tool.”
