CIO50 2023 #7 Jorge Silveira, Virtus Health

Name: Jorge Silveira
Title: Chief digital health officer
Company: Virtus Health
Commenced role: September 2020
Reporting line: Group CEO
Member of the executive team: Yes
Technology Function: 77 staff, 5 direct reports

Virtus Health’s innovation journey over the past year was driven by the necessity to maintain legal compliance in its fertility treatments.

It needed a balance of security, privacy, and legal adherence with several initiatives led by Chief digital health officer Jorge Silveira sought to address just that.

Silveira and his team, in collaboration with technology partner, Data Capture Experts (DCE), developed an advanced tool to remove identification from patient accounts in its Virtus Health’s Precision Fertility digital platform.

The advanced de-identification tool is a breakthrough in preserving donor anonymity and meeting diverse jurisdictional requirements, setting a new bar for patient privacy, Silveira tells CIO Australia.

Significant layer of trust

“This feature plays a pivotal role in preserving the anonymity of biological item donors within the global fertility market while adhering to various legal jurisdiction requirements for the management of donor information,” he says.

“This cornerstone of innovation adds a significant layer of trust to our platform.”

In addition, the team also added an AI-powered donor and recipient eligibility process to the Precision Fertility platform. This automated decision support system meticulously records and

processes the details of donors and recipients, ensuring that all biological items donated are fully compliant with the laws applicable within legal jurisdictions globally.

“It offers donors and patients peace of mind by checking against over 440 rules to determine levels of eligibility to donate and receive all types of biological items used in fertility treatments, be it domestically or internationally,” says Silveira.

Meanwhile, Virtus Health has furthered bolstered donor privacy in its platform by allowing them to choose a pseudonym and change their real demographic details on the system.

“This enhances control over demographic information displayed according to personal preferences and security group controls. The high uptake of this feature testifies to the increased trust and privacy assurance among users.”

Combined, these innovations contribute considerable value to Virtus Health’s Precision Fertility platform and demonstrate the organisation’s commitment to ensuring it is a fully secure, regulatory-compliant platform, says Silveira.

“The world-first platform enhances our global outreach, fitting diverse organisational structures, geographies, and jurisdictions,” he adds.

“Underpinned by innovative principles, it has the potential to optimise process completion times by at least 40 to 60 per cent, boosting efficiency by automating routine tasks and helping healthcare providers focus on personalised care.”

Swift, AI-powered fertility analysis

Silveira has also led the development of another AI-based tool which provides a swift, preliminary overview of a patient’s fertility.

FertiliScan harnesses the natural language processing and understanding capabilities of GPT-4.0 to create meaningful insights from unstructured patient medical history data. It is designed to process a wide array of information sources, including electronic health records, doctor’s notes, lab results, and patient self-reported data, and extract and synthesise relevant details related to fertility.

“This ground-breaking technology brings considerable value by processing large amounts of medical history data and providing a swift, preliminary overview of a patient’s fertility profile,” says Silveira.

“A task that could take hours, if not days, for a human can be completed by the AI system in a fraction of the time.”

Preliminary data shows FertiliScan reduces the time spent on medical history analysis by up to 80 per cent.

A standout feature of FertiliScan is its predictive analytics module. Using machine learning algorithms trained on large datasets, the system can identify patterns and correlations that might be overlooked by manual analysis. This can result in a preliminary suggested fertility prognosis and suggestions for potential fertility treatments or lifestyle changes.

The introduction of FertiliScan will revolutionise Virtus Health’s approach to fertility data processing and assessment, says Silveira.

“It not only improves the speed and efficiency of processing patient medical histories but has also enhanced the accuracy and comprehensiveness of fertility evaluations,” says Silveira.

“Further enhancements to this model are expected to contribute to the ongoing challenge to increase pregnancy success rates of fertility treatments, truly changing the way Virtus delivers value to its patients.”

Visionary and practical approach

These initiatives are examples of how Silveira’s visionary and practical approach has driven innovation within Virtus Health’s platform.

To communicate the value of the Precision Fertility digital platform, Silveira focused on demonstrating tangible benefits.

Achieving this required Silveira to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, from subject matter experts to the CEO and executive leadership team, project control board, and medical leaders across the business.

Through compelling presentations and thoughtful conversations, he painted a vision and architectural model that bridged current realities to an aspirational future state.

“I showed how AI could reduce time spent on patient data analysis by up to 80 per cent, thereby increasing productivity and allowing healthcare professionals to serve more patients. I also highlighted how the predictive analytics module could provide a preliminary fertility prognosis for

clinical review – offering personalised fertility treatment plans to patients,” he says.

“By effectively communicating the value of the Precision Fertility digital platform and its potential to revolutionise fertility treatment, I successfully won the support of key stakeholders. My strategic, persuasive, and inclusive approach made a profound impact, promoting the acceptance and understanding of this ground-breaking AI-driven technology in fertility healthcare.”

Louis van Wyk