Fraser Health to leverage generative AI for clinical documentation in MEDITECH Expanse EHR

Fraser Health Authority (Surrey, B.C.), a large regional health authority, will be one of the first health systems globally to deploy generative AI to assist with clinical documentation in MEDITECH’s Expanse EHR, using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and large language models (LLMs). The regional health authority is a pilot site for the clinical documentation use case announced earlier this year, which focuses on the hospital course narrative at the time of discharge.

Since discharge summaries are free text and summarize the entire hospital stay, they can be time consuming to compose. As part of this pilot, Fraser Health will use Google Cloud’s generative AI tools to automatically produce an initial draft of the hospital course. This summary will be integrated within the Expanse discharge workflow. Clinicians will then review and edit the draft within the discharge plan before it is finalized, streamlining documentation. 

Fraser Health is the largest regional health authority in British Columbia, and second largest healthcare organization in Canada, providing services to more than 1.9 million people across 20 diverse communities. The health system is currently implementing Expanse as the foundation of its digital transformation, with the first three sites already live. 

Working with MEDITECH has enabled Fraser Health to advance their digital health vision - to be national leaders in digitally transforming health care, prioritizing exceptional experiences, revolutionizing care delivery, and harnessing the power of technology for a seamless, equitable, and easily accessible, high-quality health system. 

According to MEDITECH EVP and COO Helen Waters, this milestone is the culmination of several years of work in evaluating, developing, and incorporating AI into the EHR - in ways that are both practical and safe. 

“As leaders in innovation, Fraser is reimagining how care is delivered. They recognize 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,” she said. 

“It’s important for all of us to see the real world impact of AI on an organization with the size and patient diversity that Fraser has. What we are learning now will be very relevant to other healthcare organizations of varying size, geography, and population, as we all move forward with these new technologies.” 

MEDITECH and Google Cloud have worked together on developing AI initiatives since 2021. The clinical documentation use case is the latest collaboration between the two companies to integrate AI capabilities into the Expanse system.

“We have worked with MEDITECH to identify use cases that have the most positive and meaningful impact in healthcare,” said Google Health Senior Clinical Specialist Peter Clardy, MD. “Leveraging AI to streamline the discharge summarization 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.” 

Learn more about how MEDITECH and Google Cloud are working together to provide clinicians with the tools they need to best serve their patients and communities.