Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 10/15

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Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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AI gets its Nobel moment

This week AI researchers grabbed two Nobel Prizes. Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their work on neural networks in the 1980s, which significantly laid the foundation for the current AI boom. Also, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was shared by Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and DeepMind director John Jumper for their work on protein folding with AlphaFold2 in 2020, with biochemist David Baker. Going along with AI is the way to innovate and advance, even in pure science. What you’re seeing now is the convergence of the hard sciences and computer sciences in a really meaningful way and that is very exciting! (link)(link)

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Suki raises $70M

The AI scribe market continues to attract significant attention and investment. Suki, an ambient AI startup, recently secured $70M in Series D funding after adding over a dozen new health systems in recent months. A highlight of the release was an expanded partnership with MedStar Health, making the Suki Assistant available to thousands of clinicians across various specialties, including primary care, cardiology, and gastroenterology. Suki also hinted at plans to expand beyond its current offerings, though specific details have yet to be revealed. (link)

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Microsoft launches new healthcare AI tools

Microsoft ramped up its healthcare AI push with the introduction of new medical imaging foundation models, a healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio, and a deeper collaboration with Epic centered around nursing workflows. Epic and Microsoft are actively working with a long list of major systems – including Advocate Health, Mercy, and Intermountain –  to build an ambient AI solution that drafts flowsheets for review, allowing nurses to shift more attention from paperwork to patients. (link)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• Pager debuts ReallyWell app: Pager Health debuted its new ReallyWell app that uses GenAI to examine a patient’s clinical, claims, and biometric data to create a custom “one-size-fits-one” wellness plan. Pager is achieving 83% gap closure for wellness exams and 86% sustained member engagement. (link)

• Clarify launches Performance IQ suite: Clarify launched its Performance IQ Suite to deliver AI-powered insights to health plans and others seeking to optimize provider networks and manage costs effectively. The Performance IQ Suite supports everything from provider performance assessments and referral optimization to competitive landscape analysis and network design. (link)

• Stanford Medicine implements 30 AI tools to assist clinicians: Stanford Medicine has implemented more than 30 AI-powered applications to assist clinicians, including screening and diagnostics, patient condition monitoring, long-term outcome prediction, admin help, and decision-making support. (link)

• DeepScribe releases DeepScribe Assist: The AI ambient scribe released DeepScribe Assist, which notes hierarchical condition categories (HCCs) for each patient in order to improve compliance and quality of care. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• DiMe + Google + Mayo Clinic: DiMe is joining forces with Google and Mayo Clinic to build an action-oriented playbook for health systems looking to implement AI while maximizing its impact and market reach. (link)

• Abridge + Wolters Kluwer Health: Wolters Kluwer Health, a big player in clinical decision support solutions, is teaming up with Abridge to integrate UpToDate into the startup's AI-based medical note-taking tool. Abridge’s draft clinical notes will include links to the latest, evidence-based recommendations from UpToDate, an evidence-based clinical decision support resource that clinicians use at the point of care. (link)

• insitro + Eli Lily: insitro, a machine learning-enabled drug discovery and development company announced a partnership with Eli Lilly focused on advancing potential new medicines for metabolic diseases using the company’s AI/ML-based platform. (link)

• Riverside Health + Abridge: Riverside Health, a Virginia health system plans to launch a generative AI-powered clinical documentation tool from Abridge to more than 750 providers. (link)

• CHS + Denim Health: Community Health Systems has deployed a conversational AI tool within its patient access center, which serves almost 1,000 CHS-affiliated primary care providers and handles more than 25,000 inbound calls a day. The AI bot was developed by Denim Health, a healthcare tech company. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Suki, a Redwood City, Calif., developer of AI assistants for doctors and patients, raised $70M in Series D funding. Hedosophia led, and was joined by Venrock and insiders March Capital, Flare Capital, Breyer Capital, and inHealth Ventures. (link)

• Basecamp Research, a London-based "GPT for biology," raised $60M. Singular led, and was joined by S32, Redalpine, and individual angels. (link)

• Qantev, a Paris-based AI claims platform for health and life insurers, raised $32.8M in funding. Blossom Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Elaia, Omnes, and Raise Ventures. (link)

• Centaur Labs, a Boston-based health data annotation startup, raised $16M in Series B funding. SignalFire led, and was joined by Samsung Next, Alumni Ventures and insiders Matrix, Accel, Susa and YC. (link)

• SPRY Therapeutics, a Wilmington, Del.-based AI practice management platform developer for physical therapy, raised $15M in funding. Flourish Ventures led the round and was joined by Together Fund, Eight Roads, and F-prime Capital. (link)

• RadiantGraph, a San Francisco-based AI platform for consumer engagement in the healthcare industry, raised $11M in Series A funding. M13 led the round and was joined by XYZ Ventures and True Ventures. (link)

• Stream, a San Francisco-based AI-powered processing platform for workers’ compensation medical documents, raised $5.3M in seed funding. Spark Capital led the round and was joined by Acrew Capital, TTV Capital, and angel investors. (link)

• Parakeet Health, a AI patient communication company raised $3M in seed funding, led by Canvas Ventures. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• State of AI report 2024 (link)

• Top 8 ways to ease nurses' AI fears (link)

• Columbia University survey on patient perspectives on AI in mental healthcare (link)

• University of Iowa Health Care sees 'organic growth' with ambient AI (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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