Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 8/27

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Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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Epic leaning into AI for healthcare innovation

Epic’s UGM conference just wrapped up last week and included a plethora of updates that are set to shape the future of healthcare AI. CEO Judy Faulkner, outlined Epic’s ambitious AI roadmap, including two prominent use cases: AI-powered medical scribes (186 user orgs) and automated draft responses to patient messages (150 user orgs). Over 100 new GenAI solutions are reportedly in development, including the 'Best Care Choices for My Patient' tool, which offers treatment recommendations based on outcomes for similar patients. Additionally, a new Payor Platform is now available to all health system customers, featuring AI capabilities to streamline prior authorizations, manage claims denials, and connect provider directories. Epic is positioning itself as a central player in healthcare innovation and just how Apple can kill a bunch of startups with an update, looks like Epic can do the same… (link)

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Healthcare premiums are set to spike

Healthcare costs are expected to jump, with employer healthcare premiums projected to rise by 9% next year—up from this year’s 6% hike (which was already above the five-year average). That would push the cost per employee to more than $16K, which could see a larger chunk taken out of paychecks. Drug costs, driven by Ozempic and others, have grown to 27% of companies' health bills. Major insurers report rising medical costs as more patients seek care, while the FTC criticizes pharmacy benefit managers for potentially inflating drug prices. As healthcare expenses continue to climb, medical debt continues to be the leading driver of bankruptcy. Americans spend more on healthcare than people in any other major country, and about half said they’ve struggled to cover medical costs recently. AI-driven solutions are looking like one of the only ways to curb these costs and could offer a path out of this affordability crisis. (link)

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What AI can do in healthcare—and what it should never do

In a recent WSJ article, Dr. Daniel Yang, who leads AI initiatives at Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest nonprofit and integrated healthcare provider, emphasizes the transformative potential of AI in healthcare, particularly in reducing clinicians' administrative burdens through tools like AI-powered clinical scribes. However, he also highlights the pitfalls, such as the rush to develop AI solutions without fully understanding their impact or redesigning workflows to accommodate them. Yang stresses that while AI can augment decision-making, it should never fully automate clinical decisions. He also warns of a potential divide in healthcare between well-resourced institutions and those lacking the infrastructure to deploy AI responsibly. (link)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• Neuralink announces successful 2nd in-human brain implant: Elon Musk-owned neurotech firm Neuralink announced that the 2nd patient to receive the company’s brain-computer implant as part of its PRIME trial didn’t encounter thread retraction and “went well”, an issue the first participant had faced. A video shows the patient using a 3D design software just by thinking. (link)

• Nuance building AI for nurses: The Microsoft subsidiary and AI developer and voice recognition company, Nuance, announced it’s working on a GenAI tool for nurse documentation in partnership with health systems including Advocate Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Duke Health, Intermountain Health Saint Joseph Hospital, Mercy, and more. (link)

• Google launches new AI bioacoustic foundation model: Google introduced its HeAR bioacoustic AI foundation model that analyzes human sounds like coughs to detect potential health issues. HeAR was trained on over 300M audio clips to accurately discern health-related signals from short sound bites. (link)

• K Health AI benchmark results: At the Association for Computational Linguistics Conference, K Health, an AI-powered primary care platform, presented an AI Medical QA Benchmark Study showing its LLM Knowledge Agent is up to 36% more comprehensive and 41% less prone to hallucinations than models like GPT-4, evaluated on 1,212 real-world patient questions. (link)

• New study confirms efficacy of Sword Health’s AI care model: A new study confirms that Sword Health’s AI Care model effectively scales clinicians, maintaining patient outcomes with higher completion rates. By supporting tasks like patient monitoring and decision-making, it enables broader, high-quality care with positive engagement and satisfaction. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Qventus + Northwestern Medicine: Qventus launched a new AI operational assistant to help collect all the necessary information before a patient goes into surgery, which would traditionally be performed by case managers, care navigators, schedulers, or medical assistants. The assistant was built in conjunction with Northwestern Medicine and other health systems. (link)

• UChicago + Loyal: UChicago is partnering with Loyal, an AI-powered healthtech, to help patients better find and book care. Loyal will manage UChicago’s provider and location information to ensure patients can easily access the information they need, with the collaboration arriving right on the heels of the patient engagement startup’s $33.5M Series B that was earmarked for expanding into new health systems. (link)

• Epic + Nym: Nym, an AI coding solution achieved Epic Toolbox designation within the Fully Autonomous Coding category. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Slingshot AI, an Albany, NY-based mental health startup, raised $30M in seed funding led by a16z. (link)

• PreciseDx, a NYC-based oncology diagnostics company, raised $20.7M in Series B funding. Eventide Asset Management led the round and was joined by Labcorp, Quest Diagnostics, GenHenn Capital Venture, and existing investors. (link)

• Solace, a Redwood City, CA-based digital health platform, raised $14M in Series A funding. Inspired Capital led the round and was joined by Anne Wojcicki, Susan Wojcicki, RiverPark Ventures, existing investors Craft Ventures and Torch Capital, and others. (link)

• Reliant AI, a provider of gen AI-powered data analytics software, announced its launch out of stealth with $11.3M in seed funding. The new capital was co-led by Tola Capital, Inovia Capital, and others. (link)

• Talus Bioscience, a Seattle, WA-based drug discovery and development company, raised $11.2M in seed funding. Two Bear Capital led the round and was joined by WRF Capital, NFX, YC Continuity Fund, and others. (link)

• Clarium, a NYC-based healthcare supply chain management company, raised $10.5M in funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, and Yale New Haven Health. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• Cost concerns loom as health systems ramp up AI (link)

• IDC forecast worldwide AI spending to reach $632B by 2028 (link)

• Hospitals and universities unite to combat AI bias (link)

• McKinsey shares strategies for managing in the age of genAI (link)

• Why Northwell, Mayo are investing in a robotics startup (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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