• 3,000 firms
  • Independent
  • Trusted
Save up to 70% on staff

News » Providence, Microsoft develop new AI pathology model 

Providence, Microsoft develop new AI pathology model 

Providence Microsoft AI pathology model
Photo from Ella Maru Studio/ Microsoft

WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES — Health system Providence, tech giant Microsoft, and the University of Washington recently launched Prov-GigaPath, an advanced AI-powered pathology model designed to enhance patient care and revolutionize cancer diagnostics. 

This groundbreaking model captures global patterns across whole pathology slides, offering unprecedented insights into cancer subtypes and mutations.

Largest pretraining effort to date

Prov-GigaPath stands out due to its extensive pretraining on real-world data. The model was trained on 1.3 billion pathology image tiles from 171,189 digital whole slides provided by Providence, making it one of the largest foundational models for digital pathology. 

This dataset is five to ten times larger than other established pretraining datasets, such as The Cancer Genome Atlas.

Superior performance and comprehensive analysis

Unlike previous models that analyze small portions of slides, Prov-GigaPath captures both local and global patterns across entire slides using the GigaPath vision transformer architecture. This comprehensive approach has led to superior performance, as evidenced by a study published in Nature. 

The study benchmarked Prov-GigaPath against data from Providence and the Cancer Genome Atlas, covering nine cancer subtyping tasks and 17 pathomics tasks. Prov-GigaPath achieved top performance on 25 of 26 tasks, significantly outperforming the second-best method on 18 tasks.

Transformative impact on cancer research

Dr. Carlo Bifulco, Chief Medical Officer of Providence Genomics, highlighted the model’s potential to unlock new approaches to studying the tumor microenvironment. 

“The rich data in pathology slides can, through AI tools like Prov-GigaPath, uncover novel relationships and insights that go beyond what the human eye can discern,” he said. 

This capability could have significant downstream applications in cancer diagnostics and prognostics, aiding clinicians in treatment selection and offering broader biomedical impacts.

Overcoming previous challenges

Ari Robicsek, Providence’s Chief Analytics and Research Officer, emphasized the transformative nature of this work. 

“This transformative work is the result of focused efforts to overcome three major challenges that have stymied previous computational pathology models from widely being applied in the clinical setting: shortage of real-world data, inability to incorporate whole-slide modeling, and lack of accessibility,” he stated.

With Prov-GigaPath now globally available, its holistic whole-slide modeling promises to unlock new approaches to cancer diagnostics and prognostics. 

The model’s ability to predict actionable cancer driver genomic mutations and characterize the tumor microenvironment could significantly advance precision medicine and improve patient outcomes.

Microsoft’s healthcare partnerships

Microsoft has been very active in its initiatives within the healthcare industry. Just last month, the firm partnered with revenue cycle management firm Ensemble Health Partners to accelerate the development of AI capabilities for healthcare providers through Ensemble’s proprietary platform, EIQ. 

Last March, outsourcing firm Cognizant also joined forces with Microsoft to integrate AI technologies into healthcare administration systems.

At the same time,  Nuance Communications, a Microsoft company, entered a partnership with healthcare company MEDITECH to integrate Expanse into the Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience Copilot (DAX Copilot) to automate clinical processes.

Read more here.

Start your
journey today

  • Independent
  • Free
  • Transparent

About OA

Outsource Accelerator is the trusted source of independent information, advisory and expert implementation of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

The #1 outsourcing authority

Outsource Accelerator offers the world’s leading aggregator marketplace for outsourcing. It specifically provides the conduit between Philippines outsourcing suppliers and the businesses – clients – across the globe.

The Outsource Accelerator website has over 5,000 articles, 450+ podcast episodes, and a comprehensive directory with 4000+ BPO companies… all designed to make it easier for clients to learn about – and engage with – outsourcing.

About Derek Gallimore

Derek Gallimore has been in business for 20 years, outsourcing for over eight years, and has been living in Manila (the heart of global outsourcing) since 2014. Derek is the founder and CEO of Outsource Accelerator, and is regarded as a leading expert on all things outsourcing.

“Excellent service for outsourcing advice and expertise for my business.”

Learn more
Banner Image
Get 3 Free Quotes Verified Outsourcing Suppliers
3,000 firms.Just 2 minutes to complete.
SAVE UP TO
70% ON STAFF COSTS
Learn more

Connect with over 3,000 outsourcing services providers.

Banner Image

Transform your business with skilled offshore talent.

  • 3,000 firms
  • Simple
  • Transparent
Banner Image