Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 10/22

Subscribe | Advertise

Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

1/

Anthropic CEO’s AI manifesto

On brand with other AI leaders, such as Sam Altman and his write-up The Intelligence Age, Dario Amoedi, the CEO/Founder of Anthropic, a foundational model startup, released a 15,000-word essay on the potential upsides of AI. Dario talks about the radical changes and how they can be achieved practically in 5 areas. We summarized his views on biology and physical health below:

Dario argues that biological science holds immense potential to improve human life by curing diseases and enhancing overall health. However, progress is limited by data quality, the complexity of biological systems, and the slow pace of experiments and clinical trials. AI has historically faced skepticism in biology, but breakthroughs like AlphaFold demonstrate its promise. Dario thinks AI could act as a virtual biologist, accelerating discoveries and research by performing tasks traditionally done by humans. This could lead to transformative advancements such as curing genetic diseases, eliminating most cancers, extending human lifespan, and increasing biological freedom, achieving 50-100 years of progress in just 5-10 years. (link)(tweet)

2/

Investment continues to flood into AI scribes

The AI Scribe market continues to get a ton of focus and dollars. As we reported last week, Suki announced $70M in funding, bringing its valuation to $500M. Meanwhile, it was reported that Abridge is raising $250M at a $2.5B valuation. This follows their $150M raise at an $800M valuation in February 2024, and a $30M Series B at a $200M valuation in late 2023. Abridge's rapid growth has largely been driven by strategic partnerships, including an existing relationship with Epic. Given the low switching costs and lack of product differentiation in the space, it will be interesting to see which AI scribes make it out on top. (link)(tweet)

3/

Nurses’ perspectives on AI

McKinsey released a report on nurses’ perceptions of AI, finding that 64% of nurses support the use of more AI tools, with the greatest concerns being trust in accuracy and lack of human interaction. While AI may not be a panacea that fully solves all the challenges that nurses face, it could meaningfully alleviate some of the workload burden. In 2023, McKinsey and the American Nurses Foundation found that roughly 20% of a nurse’s shift could be freed up through technology. As AI advances, surveyed nurses recognize the potential support these tools can provide. The key may lie in involving nurses in the design process, as suggested by the survey. (link)

TOGETHER WITH QUICKBLOX

Looking for HIPAA-compliant telemedicine solutions for remote health management?

Power your healthtech solutions with QuickBlox’s SDKs and APIs, featuring HIPAA-compliant chat, video, and AI capabilities. Get started here for free!

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• Google Cloud’s ‘Vertex AI Search for Healthcare’ platform is now available: Google Cloud announced its Vertex AI Search for Healthcare platform is now available for general use. The Vertex AI Search for Healthcare tool is designed to make it faster for healthcare professionals and other employees to find critical information within health records and medical documents. The technology enables medically tuned, gen AI searches on a broad spectrum of data including FHIR data and clinical notes. (link)

• CHAI floats draft framework to certify AI assurance: The Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) released a draft 'nutrition label' for AI in healthcare. Model cards are designed to give stakeholders visibility into how a model works and what it does along with potential technical limitations and risks. (link)

• Multitasking AI robots for elder care: Toyota and Hyundai's Boston Dynamics are working together to develop multitasking AI robots for eventual use in factory assembly lines and elder care. (link)

• Lenovo launches 3D avatar to converse with dementia patients: Tech giant Lenovo announced a proof-of-concept project dubbed Alzheimer's Intelligence, a photorealistic AI-enabled 3D avatar that converses with individuals with dementia. It offers curated advice gathered from hundreds of patients. (link)

• Avo launches EHR-integrated AI consult tool: Avo, a provider of healthcare AI solutions, launched Ask Avo, a customizable AI consult tool for complex clinical questions that integrates into EHR systems. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Duke University Health + GE Healthcare: Duke University Health System will be the first provider org to deploy GE HealthCare’s Hospital Pulse Tile which equips operations leaders with a customizable AI-powered dashboard for operational “pulse checks.” (link)

• Google + India, Thailand hospitals: Google announced it is licensing its AI model focused on detecting diabetic retinopathy to partners in Thailand and India, two countries the tech giant says have a shortage of eye specialists. (link)

• Kipu Health + AWS: The behavioral health EHR, RCM, and CRM company partnered with the cloud services company to build a suite of AI-enabled solutions for behavioral health, starting with an AI clinician assistant. (link)

• GE Healthcare + Blackford: The healthcare hardware and software company is collaborating with the AI radiology integration platform to enable a catalog of AI-enabled workflow tools into its radiology offerings. (link)  

• Cohere Health + MCG: The AI prior auth vendor is partnering with the Hearst Health network clinical guidance company to drive, “clinically appropriate auto-approvals while reducing provider submission time and friction.” (link)  

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Terray Therapeutics, a Monrovia, CA, biotech that uses AI to discover small molecule drugs, raised $120M in Series B funding. NVentures and Bedford Ridge co-led, and were joined by Madrona, Maverick Capital, Goldcrest Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, XTX Ventures, Digitalis Ventures, and Alexandria Ventures. (link)

• HealthEx, a startup that built a consumer preference and consent platform for healthcare to unlock data access, launched with $14M in seed and series A funding. General Catalyst led with participation by Electric Capital. (link)

• Ikerian, a healthcare data workflow with offices in Boston and Switzerland, raised $8M in Series B funding led by Sanoptis. (link)

• Legion Health, an Austin, TX-based AI-enabled psychiatry practice, raised $6.3M. Investors include Alumni Ventures, Y Combinator, Acequia Capital and Soma Capital. (link)

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

• CopilotIQ + Biofourmis: CopilotIQ, at-home remote health monitoring for older patients, and Biofourmis, a healthtech company that offers care-at-home solutions and services to enable medical care both virtually and in person, announced an all-stock merger and fresh capital raise. The combined company creates the industry's first AI-driven platform that delivers in-home care across the full spectrum from pre-surgical optimization to acute, post-acute, and chronic care. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• 6 children's hospitals leading in AI (link)

• Rock Health released its Q3 2024 digital health funding update (link)

• How AI is transforming medical education (link)

• Opinion on why OpenAI o1 doesn’t work in healthcare (link)

• Why nurses like AI for MyChart messages (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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