Greenway Uses AI Internally to Accelerate Development

AI is and will be a powerful tool for clinicians, but lost in all the hype is the fact that it can help the people who create those tools. The development team at Greenway Health is using AI internally to accelerate their work and deliver quicker for their clients.

Healthcare IT Today sat down with David Cohen, Greenway’s Chief Product & Technology Officer to learn more. We caught up with him at the company’s user group meeting in Arlington, TX.

Greenway Developers Leverage AI

“Internally we started with GitHub Copilot at the end of 2023,” shared Cohen. “We started with a pilot group of engineers, and it was incredibly successful. We saw upwards of 15 to 20% productivity improvement within that small cohort. So, we rolled it out to our entire engineering organization.”

For example, GitHub Copilot is helping Greenway developers quickly refactor legacy code. The AI technology explains what the code is and how it behaves. Prior to AI it could take a developer several hours to decipher the legacy code. Now they can move right to refactoring it or adding to its function and be confident in their work.

Consolidating Greenway’s UI

One of the projects that Cohen and his team are focused on is consolidating Greenway’s user interfaces – a consequence of past acquisitions.

“Last year we started working on a Greenway design system that we call Greenway Elements,” said Cohen. “It is a modern design system. It has everything from color schemes, to buttons, to fonts, and it’s all codified so when engineers are writing new user interfaces, they leverage components of the design system.”

Greenway’s design system is web responsive and complies with the ADA Standards for Accessible Design.

So far, the new standardized UI has been added to the Greenway clearinghouse, one of their practice management systems, and their telehealth solution.

“It’s going to permeate throughout our entire solution portfolio and really give the entire suite of Greenway solutions a consistent look and feel,” said Cohen.

Interoperability

In addition to his Greenway duties, Cohen also serves on the board of Commonwell Health Alliance. He has a unique perspective on what is and isn’t working when it comes to interoperability across the US healthcare ecosystem.

Cohen believes we are at an interoperability inflection point. He points to the rollout of TEFCA and the emergence of certified Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs) as a sign that things are heading in the right direction.

“There is still work to do,” cautioned Cohen. “CCDAs are cumbersome to work with, but I am excited about where the industry is going with the FHIR expansion that is coming. We will have a much larger data set to share across the industry.”

Cohen and his team at Greenway are working to ensure the company is well positioned relative to FHIR so that their clients can be ready to be fully interoperable with other members of the healthcare ecosystem.

Watch the interview with David Cohen to learn:

How Greenway’s Health Pay brings many elements of patient engagement together
What Greenway is doing for electronic case reporting
How Greenway Data Cloud and Greenway Insights benefit healthcare practices

Learn more about Greenway Health at https://www.greenwayhealth.com/

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