Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 4/8

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The 2025 AI Index Report: Science & Medicine

AI is no longer just a research tool, it’s becoming a core engine of progress in science and medicine. The 2025 AI Index Report, led by RAISE Health and Stanford HAI, captures the most significant breakthroughs from 2024. Here are 10 highlights that defined the year:

• Protein folding breakthroughs: Models like AlphaFold 3 and ESM3 set new records in protein structure prediction. These advances accelerate drug discovery and deepen our understanding of biology.

• AI drives discovery: Tools like Aviary and FireSat show how AI accelerates research in biology and climate science. AI is moving from analysis to active hypothesis generation.

• Medical knowledge in LLMs improves: OpenAI’s o1 model hit 96% on MedQA, a key clinical benchmark. LLMs are rapidly closing the gap with domain experts.

• AI outperforms doctors in some tasks: GPT-4 surpassed physicians in diagnosing complex cases. Collaboration between AI and clinicians shows the most promise.

• FDA approvals surge: Over 220 AI-enabled devices are now cleared for clinical use. Regulatory acceptance is accelerating adoption.

• Synthetic data gains traction: AI-generated data helps protect privacy while improving model accuracy. It also supports research on health disparities and new treatments.

• Ethics research expands: Publications on medical AI ethics quadrupled since 2020. This reflects growing concern over bias, safety, and transparency.

• Foundation models enter medicine: New models like Med-Gemini, EchoCLIP, and ChexAgent show strong performance on specialized tasks. These generalizable systems could power a new era of clinical tools.

• Protein data explodes: Public protein databases grew massively, with AlphaFold alone expanding 585%. This fuels downstream breakthroughs in science and therapeutics.

• AI earns Nobel honors: Work on AlphaFold and neural networks won two Nobel Prizes. It’s a historic recognition of AI’s role in modern science.

  (link)

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AI provides promising therapy treatment

Dartmouth researchers just completed the first clinical trial of an AI therapy chatbot, and the results are promising. The bot, called Therabot, delivered care comparable to gold-standard cognitive therapy, reducing depression symptoms by 51% and anxiety by 31%. Over the eight-week trial, users spent about six hours engaging with the chatbot, forming meaningful bonds and interacting regularly without prompts. Therabot was trained on evidence-based methods, included safety protocols for crisis situations, and had oversight from mental health professionals. With many people still facing stigma or limited access to quality care, this study shows how AI could become a powerful tool in making therapy more accessible, effective, and supportive for those who need it. (link)

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How two health systems are saving millions with AI

Two health systems—Humboldt Park Health in Chicago and John Muir Health in California—are showing how AI can deliver serious ROI in healthcare. Humboldt Park is rolling out tools expected to save up to $4 million annually, including fall-detection AI and Microsoft’s DAX Copilot for ambient clinical documentation. Meanwhile, John Muir Health projects $3 million in savings, largely from reduced physician burnout and turnover after adopting Ambience Healthcare, another ambient AI solution. So, both systems are heavily focused on AI scribes that automate clinical notes: freeing up providers, improving documentation quality, and cutting down admin time. It’s proof that with the right tools, even modestly sized health systems can use AI to boost care and the bottom line. (link 1)(link 2)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• CHAI adding post-deployment monitoring feature for AI: The Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) is adding a new post-deployment monitoring feature to its national model card registry through which health systems will share the results of agreed-upon metrics for evaluating the performance of AI in local contexts. (link)

• AI turns brain signals into instant speech: Researchers at UC Berkeley and UCSF developed an AI that can transform brain signals into speech with only a one-second delay, a breakthrough in brain-computer interfaces and a major improvement over previous systems. Signals are decoded from the brain's motor cortex, converting intended speech into words almost instantly compared to the 8-second delay of earlier systems. (link)

• AI scribes save 16K documentation hours at Permanente Medical Group: Physicians at the Permanente Medical Group in Northern California have saved 16,000 hours in documentation by using an artificial intelligence-powered scribe. Between October 2023 and December 2024, 7,260 physicians used the tool to assist with 2,576,627 patient encounters. (link)

• Elon Musk announces Neuralink's first human implant of Blindsight coming this year: Musk says the implant will initially provide blind individuals with low-resolution sight with the potential for superhuman vision in the future. (link)

• Suki introduces AI-powered prescription order staging feature: The new feature allows clinicians to speak their prescription orders to Suki, which then structures, codes and stages the order. (link)

• Meta launches Llama 4 model family: Meta just announced its Llama 4 family with multimodal capabilities and industry-leading context length—introducing new open-weights Scout and Maverick models and previewing a 2T parameter Behemoth model still in training. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Seattle Children’s + Google: Seattle Children’s partnered with Google Cloud to develop an AI-powered tool called Pathway Assistant. The tool, built using Google’s Gemini models on its Vertex AI platform, is designed to help healthcare providers quickly access and apply critical medical information. Traditionally, retrieving such data could take up to 15 minutes. With Pathway Assistant, clinicians can pull information from clinical standard work pathways in seconds. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Sesame AI, an AI voice startup co-founded by Brendan Iribe (Oculus), is in talks to raise more than $200m at a $1b+ valuation co-led by Sequoia and Spark Capital. (link)

• Thatch, an SF-based provider of individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements for employers, provider, raised $40M in Series B funding led by Index Ventures, and joined by a16z, General Catalyst, SemperVirens, PeopleTech Partners, The General Partnership, and ADP Ventures. (link)

• Venteur, an SF-based health benefits provider, raised $20M in Series A funding. Informed Ventures and American Family Ventures led the round and were joined by Morgan Health, Catalyst by Wellstar, Ingeborg Investments, and existing investors Plug and Play, Techstars, Revelry Venture Partners, and Houghton Street Ventures. (link)

• Notable Systems, a Denver-based RCM startup for medical equipment providers, raised $12M in Series B funding co-led by Harbert Growth Partners and Grotech Ventures. (link)

• RapidClaims, a New York-based provider of revenue cycle and claims management health-care providers, raised $11M in Series A funding from Accel and Together Fund. (link)

• Voize, a Berlin-based AI startup voize has raised $9M in a Seed funding round led by HV Capital, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator, redalpine, and HPI Ventures. (link)

• Youlify, an SF provider of automation tools for health-care revenue cycle management, raised $4.3M in seed funding led by Bonfire Ventures. (link)

• Parallel, a French maker of AI agents for healthcare providers, raised $3.5M in seed funding. FRST led, and was joined by YC, Bpifrance, Kima Ventures, and Better Angle. (link)

MERGERS & ACQUISTIONS

• WELL Health + HEALWELL: WELL Health has acquired a majority stake in HEALWELL AI, gaining access to its newly acquired global distribution network through Orion Health’s digital care platform across 11 countries. (link)

• Cylinder + Dieta: Cylinder Health acquired Dieta to enhance its gut health platform with AI-driven stool analysis, shortly after joining Teladoc’s connected care network. (link)

FUNDRAISING

• SignalFire, SignalFire has raised over $1B in fresh capital, bringing total assets under management to ~$3B, to back the next generation of applied AI startups. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• Rewiring healthcare payers: A guide to digital and AI transformation (link)

• Mount Sinai flags AI bias in clinical decision-making (link)

• AI matches, sometimes beats physicians: Cedars-Sinai study (link)

• LLMs officially pass the Turing Test (link)

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Visuals of the Week 📸

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