Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 10/1

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Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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Roadmap: Healthcare AI

Bessemer Venture Partners, the famed VC, published its roadmap to AI in healthcare. They believe healthcare AI is at a transformative juncture, driven by three key opportunities. First, healthcare generates 30% of the world’s data, and with much of it now digitized, AI can harness this vast resource to improve outcomes. Second, AI is redefining health from the molecular level (proteome) to populations, offering a more comprehensive understanding of healthcare. Third, research is rapidly translating into real-world AI products and services. Bessemer argues that for success, companies must align modality, business model, and market fit. Multimodal AI, which integrates diverse data, is crucial for future innovation, while industry-specific infrastructure is urgently needed to support AI’s growth. (link)

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U.S. ranks last on healthcare

The U.S. ranked last in the Commonwealth Fund’s comprehensive report comparing healthcare performance across 10 wealthy nations, assessing access, administrative efficiency, outcomes, and equity. Leading the pack were Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK. Unfortunately, the U.S. stood out for all the wrong reasons—though not entirely due to its healthcare system. Contributing factors include inequality, underfunding of mental health and elderly care, gun violence, addiction, and poor diets. The report emphasized administrative inefficiency, citing the overwhelming number of health insurance products and complex policies. As a global leader in medical innovation, the U.S. has the opportunity to leverage AI to tackle these inefficiencies and improve care delivery. (link)

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Doctors using AI without patients knowing

Doctors are increasingly using AI embedded in Epic's MyChart to respond to patient inquiries, often without informing patients. Experts express concerns about potential errors in the AI-generated responses and the impact on doctor-patient relationships. While AI tools aim to reduce clinician burnout and improve access to timely health information, many patients remain cautious. Approximately 15,000 providers at over 150 health systems are using AI features in MyChart. The AI can mimic doctors' writing styles using past notes, but health systems often don't disclose its use. Varying disclosure practices raise ethical concerns about transparency and trust, so clinicians should make sure they don’t sacrifice quality for efficiency. (link)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

Latest on business, consumer, and clinical healthcare AI tools and partnerships…

TOOLS

• AI breakthrough in treating rare diseases: Harvard Medical School researchers recently developed an AI model called TxGNN that can identify existing drugs for repurposing to treat rare and neglected diseases. TxGNN identified drug candidates from nearly 8,000 existing medicines for over 17,000 diseases, many without current treatments. (link)

• Abridge opens up the black box: Abridge released a whitepaper on into its technology and the importance of systematic model evaluation. They highlighted the differences in medical conversation word error rates between the specialized models of Abridge (13.7%) and Google (16.6%) versus non-healthcare-tuned models like OpenAI’s Whisper v3 (22.8%). (link)

• Komodo Health rolls out new genAI tools: The health data company rolled out a new AI analytics assistant, MapAI, as part of its overarching platform MapLab. MapAI and another new tool, MapExplorer, enable healthcare professionals to explore any therapeutic area simply by asking questions in plain language. (link)

• Self-driving electric wheelchairs: Self-driving wheelchairs have been zooming around the Seattle Airport for the past month, helping transport passengers to and from their gates. The devices provide riders with more freedom, confidence and an improved customer experience. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Suki + Rural hospitals: Healthcare AI assistant company Suki announced its expansion into 12 new hospitals. The hospitals are all customers of electronic health record company Meditech, which signed Suki as its first AI assistant offering last year. (link)

• Nabla + athenahealth: Nabla is now officially available through the athenahealth Marketplace, bringing its ambient AI assistant to athena’s extensive network of providers. Nabla will automatically populate core EHR details such as History of Present Illness, Physical Exam, Assessment & Plan, Social History, and Patient Instructions. (link)

• AstraZeneca + Immunai: AstraZeneca will pay $18M to biotechnology firm Immunai Inc to use the New York-based firm's AI model of the immune system to enhance cancer drug trial efficiency. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

Spotlight on latest capital raises, M&A, and investments…

FUNDING

• Mendaera, a San Mateo, CA-based medical robotics developer, raised $73M in Series B funding. Threshold Ventures led the round and was joined by Lux Capital, PFM Health Sciences, and Fred Moll. (link)

• Qure.ai, a Mumbai-based radiology AI vendor, raised $65M in Series D funding. Lightspeed and 360 ONE Asset led the round and were joined by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Kae Capital, and existing investors Novo Holdings, HealthQuad, and TeamFund. (link)

• Tennr, an NYC-based AI platform attempting to automate faxes in healthcare, is raising $33M in funding. (link)

• Feno, a Culver City, CA, smart toothbrush startup, raised $6M in seed funding. Bold Capital Partners led and was joined by True Ventures, Upfront Ventures, and Share Ventures. (link)

• Arya Health, a New York-based healthcare payroll automation platform, raised $4M in seed funding led by Twelve Below. (link)

• Dimer Health, a Mendham, N.J., provider of hospital discharge and aftercare software, raised nearly $3M in seed funding led by Tech Aviv. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

News, podcasts, blogs, tweets, resources, etc… 

• Dollars and cents in AI and healthtech (link)

• Study of o1 in medicine: are we closer to an AI doctor? (link)

• Critics bristle over creating MyChart messages with AI (link)

• California Gov. Newsom to veto controversial AI safety bill (link)

• Why UnitedHealthcare is focusing on simplicity in its AI strategy (link)

• Why a health system is launching a generative AI 'agent' (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

Funny memes, cool pics, and interesting data from around the web…