Medtronic has formed an AI center of excellence as the company aims to advance AI-enabled healthcare based on data from its medical devices.
Speaking at the JP Morgan Stanley 42nd Annual Healthcare conference, Medtronic CEO Geoffrey Martha outlined the company's plans in AI. Martha said the company's move to create an AI center of excellence is aimed at centralizing key data assets including millions of patient datasets, regulatory experience, analytics knowhow, and medical device expertise.
In a nutshell, many of Medtronic's devices today include algorithms and models. The Medtronic AI-enhanced portfolio includes GI Genius, which uses AI for endoscopy, Touch Surgery Enterprise, AiBLE for neurosurgery, MiniMed 780G System for diabetes management, and LINQ, an insertable cardiac monitor.
Medtronic, which is optimizing its supply chain, automating and cutting costs, is betting that AI can be a growth market for the medical device giant.
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Martha said:
"We're harnessing the power of AI today for using clinical decision support, creating new indications and delivering personalized treatments. We’re uniquely positioned to advance AI and med tech."
Martha said the company's data sets across multiple points of care can be valuable to hospital systems. "We have the data and analytics expertise, and we're continuing to build on that. And this is across multiple disease areas. And we've been working very closely with the regulators on this. We spend a lot of time with regulators around the world, especially the FDA on how to think about AI and health care," said Martha, who added the company is planning to leverage common platforms to scale.
Martha added that's it's early, but Medtronic is already seeing the promise in training models with its data.
"This isn't about ChatGPT. I mean we have to train the models ourselves with a lot of high-quality data, but the impact is amazing here. And I think as we move forward, you're going to hear more and more about this from us," said Martha.
