North Highland, a global management consulting firm, has entered a strategic partnership with Digital Reasoning, a Franklin, Tennessee-based artificial intelligence firm. Together, the firms will deliver AI-powered solutions to help healthcare providers identify cancer diagnoses faster and improve patient volumes through the automation of time-consuming manual processes.
Founded in 2000, Digital Reasoning delivers cognitive computing services to government agencies, the financial services industry, and healthcare organizations. The firm has deep expertise across AI, machine learning, data and analytics, and natural language processing, and has approximately 200 employees across six offices in the US, UK, Ireland, and Singapore.
Together with North Highland, which offers a full suite of management and technology consulting services to clients in healthcare and a range of other sectors, Digital Reasoning will help healthcare providers create more efficient and effective digital processes.
The Covid-19 pandemic caused a shutdown of elective surgeries, while also delaying cancer diagnosis and treatment. According to the American Cancer Society, 50% of cancer patients experienced disruption to their treatment plan, including postponed surgeries, infusions, and other procedures. Canceled appointments could also account for over 80,000 missed diagnoses, according to IQVIA.
North Highland and Digital Reasoning will help healthcare providers leverage AI and human workflows to identify cancer diagnoses faster so patients can be treated sooner. The partnership will also help clients increase clinical interaction, improve productivity, grow net revenue, increase patient volume, and increase patient retention.
“In many ways, the pandemic has underscored the broad need for digital transformation across healthcare and accelerated the adoption of solutions for problems we already knew existed,” said Paul Kleine-Kracht, vice president at North Highland. “We’ve partnered with Digital Reasoning to bring proven, needed solutions to the healthcare industry. We’re talking about solutions that can quickly be implemented and from which you can see real impact within a matter of months, if not weeks.”
As restrictions ease, health systems will face a surge of cancer diagnoses, which may be in further and more complicated stages because of the shutdown. Providers will be challenged to fit in a surge of patients while implementing higher safety protocols.
“Expanding capacity with traditional means – building new buildings and hiring additional clinicians – is impossible right now,” said Chris Cashwell, senior vice president of healthcare solutions at Digital Reasoning. “The only way to instantly expand capacity to get all these patients in for treatment safely is through the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and human expertise.”
North Highland is headquartered in Atlanta and is a part of Cordence Worldwide, a network of 12 consulting firms with more than 5,000 consultants across 25+ countries.