Tortus AI is transforming healthcare by eliminating human error and accelerating safe AI adoption. Their innovative AI co-pilot, designed to integrate seamlessly with existing NHS systems, reduces administrative burdens, freeing clinicians for enhanced patient care
Q: Tortus AI has made some impressive strides in a short time. Could you briefly tell us about Tortus AI’s mission and the core problem you’re trying to solve for the NHS?
Our mission is simple: Eliminate human error in medicine. We want to accelerate the safe adoption of AI in healthcare to save lives. We are building a next-generation AI co-pilot that can use any software and any clinical AI tool and our goal is to have AI for every clinician.
TORTUS is fundamentally about revolutionising how clinicians engage with their work by significantly reducing the administrative burden they face each day. Currently, healthcare professionals are inundated with non-clinical tasks such as documentation, billing, and data entry, which divert their focus from patient care and create considerable stress. TORTUS intervenes to alleviate these issues, empowering clinicians to reclaim time, lower stress levels, and reinvest their energy into more direct patient interactions, ultimately enhancing the quality of care provided. The platform utilises AI to automate mundane tasks, streamline workflows, and provide real-time insights.
Q: Tortus AI has rapidly achieved compliance to be able to deploy within the NHS. What critical factors enabled this speed, and how do you balance rapid progress with the crucial safety considerations in healthcare AI?
Clinical safety is baked into everything we do at TORTUS. We want to ensure that no clinical risk is introduced at any point. TORTUS has a clinician-in-the-loop framework designed to uphold the accuracy and reliability of deployment in clinical settings. It also touches upon the company’s commitment to protecting patient privacy by not training models on patient data but instead focusing on continuous clinical evaluation.
The speed at which TORTUS achieved Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) NHS compliance can be attributed to its robust approach to compatibility with existing healthcare legislation and compliance.
The development team prioritised rigorous testing protocols and adhered strictly to GDPR requirements, effectively balancing rapid innovation with the absolute necessity for safety in medical technology.
Q: Your research program with Great Ormond Street Hospital is noteworthy. Could you share what influenced the development of the Tortus AI platform?
TORTUS’s collaboration with Great Ormond Street Hospital was an amazing opportunity early on in our journey. GOSH is an incredible trust, highly innovative, and pioneering, so it made sense that they were keen to implement AI ambient technology. The partnership allowed us to explore using TORTUS in a real-world clinical setting. Clinicians at the hospital worked closely with TORTUS, offering feedback on functionality and impact, which informed iterative improvements. This partnership demonstrated how AI could tangibly improve efficiency, supporting better documentation practices that result in reduced transcription times and improved data accuracy.
Q: Steven Dodd emphasises the need to accelerate AI in conjunction with Electronic Health Records (EHRs). How does Tortus AI specifically address this need, and what benefits does your platform offer NHS clinicians regarding time-saving and reduced administrative burden?
TORTUS addresses the pressing need for enhanced AI integration into Electronic Health Records by providing solutions that are both seamless and non-disruptive to current procedures.
EHRs are the ultimate source of truth for clinicians and patients (as patients can access all notes via the NHS app), so TORTUS focuses on ensuring the information put into them is as accurate as possible and as detailed as needed. By cutting down time spent on these tasks by up to 25%, TORTUS enables clinicians to refocus their efforts on patient care, thereby enhancing the quality of consultations and the breadth of care delivery, which is the key goal.
Q: What are the most significant hurdles to wider AI adoption in the NHS, and how can partnerships between industry and the NHS, like your own, help overcome these challenges?
The healthcare sector has been slow to embrace AI due to concerns about data privacy, interoperability challenges, and resistance to change due to deeply ingrained practices. These are totally fair, and TORTUS aims to address these by ensuring clinician safety is at the heart of what we do. We want to go as fast as we can but as slow as we need to ensure the safe adoption of AI, and working with clinician partners to give feedback not only helps mitigate apprehensions but also paves the way for smoother transitions to AI-powered systems.
Q: Can you give an example of how Tortus AI frees up clinicians’ time for more patient engagement and what kind of impact this has had in your pilot deployments?
During pilot deployments, TORTUS has markedly improved clinician workload management by automating documentation tasks. This automation translates into clinicians having increased opportunities for meaningful engagement with patients, increases the amount of direct care, enhances patient satisfaction, and reduces clinician burnout and retention.
Q: How does Tortus AI ensure the security and compliance of its platform, particularly when handling sensitive patient data within the NHS framework?
In handling sensitive patient data, TORTUS adheres to stringent data protection standards and is fully compliant with UK GDPR guidelines. We don’t train any models or store any patient data. This focus on security is vital to maintaining the trust of both healthcare providers and patients.
Q: Looking ahead, what is your vision for the role of AI in healthcare, and how does Tortus AI aim to contribute to realising that vision?
TORTUS envisions a future where AI is not just a tool but an integral component of healthcare decision-making processes. By automating and assisting routine tasks and providing data-driven insights, AI can help clinicians make more informed decisions faster, thus enhancing patient outcomes. TORTUS is committed to being at the forefront of this transformation, offering solutions that are not only innovative but also align with healthcare providers’ goals of improved efficiency and patient-centric care.
