Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 9/17

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Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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OpenAI’s new model and what it means for healthcare

OpenAI has officially released its new ‘o1’ model, its first AI model with advanced 'reasoning' capabilities now integrated into ChatGPT for Premium and Teams users. Here are some highlights:

• o1 uses reinforcement learning and chain-of-thought processing to "think" before responding, mimicking human problem-solving.

• It outperforms expert humans on PhD-level science questions and ranks in the 89th percentile for competitive programming.

• The model also solved 83% of International Mathematics Olympiad qualifying exam problems, compared to GPT-4o's 13%.

As seen below, o1 outperforms previous models on preliminary medical assessments. o1’s enhanced reasoning capabilities by "thinking" before responding will not only lead to more accurate AI responses but opens up an entirely new world of real-world use cases for complex problems in healthcare. (link)(tweet)

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Where do healthcare budgets match AI hype? A 10-year lookback

Some estimates suggest AI could create $370B in value for healthcare, one of the largest opportunities across any US sector. Following the wave, investors have poured over $30B of capital into healthcare AI companies over just the last 3 years. Flare Capital partners took it upon themselves to review over 4,000 healthcare AI venture capital deals across a decade to understand where AI companies have created the most value. First off, AI adoption is still lagging due to concerns about ROI and integration risks. That said, Most value creation has been seen in life sciences and health plans, where AI startups convert capital to value more efficiently. Clinical AI, particularly in imaging and decision support, has received the most funding but faces regulatory and ROI challenges. Financial and operational AI in health systems has shown clearer ROI and higher maturity rates. Overall, a strategic commitment to AI is emerging in healthcare, focusing on areas with proven returns such as financial management and patient engagement. (link)

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Apple leans in on medical devices

Apple is leaning into healthcare and enhancing health features on its devices, adding sleep apnea detection to Apple Watch and hearing loss testing and aid capabilities to AirPods. The watch will use its accelerometer to identify sleep apnea, offering a non-intrusive alternative to traditional sleep studies. AirPods Pro 2 will function as over-the-counter hearing aids, helping users discreetly manage mild to moderate hearing loss and received FDA approval to do so last week. Apple aims to make these health tools accessible through its existing devices, reflecting CEO Tim Cook’s vision of growing Apple’s impact on personal health. Using AI to make advanced health monitoring more accessible to everyone is a huge win! (link)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• AI can 3D print lifelike human organs: Researchers at Washington State University recently developed an AI technique called Bayesian Optimization that dramatically improves the speed and efficiency of 3D printing lifelike human organs. ·  In tests, it printed 60 continually improving versions of kidney and prostate organ models. (link)

• Discovering new drugs with AI: Scientists from China and the U.S. just developed ActFound, a new AI model that outperforms existing methods in predicting drug bioactivity, potentially accelerating and reducing costs in drug development. ActFound combines meta-learning and pairwise learning to overcome common limitations in AI drug discovery, like small datasets and incompatible measurements. (link)

• Salesforce rolls out new AI healthcare solutions: Salesforce's new patient and member services AI tool, which can be found in the AI use case library, will help accelerate time to care with pre-visit recaps, AI-generated prescriptions and benefits summaries. (link)

• Innovaccer’s ‘Care Management Copilot’: Innovaccer debuted Care Management Copilot within its all-in-one care management solution, adding clinical documentation to existing automations for patient engagement and clinical workflows. The new tool is powered by Innovaccer’s healthcare-native Sara AI model to reduce the documentation burden on care managers. (link)

• FDA updates list of AR/VR devices: The FDA updated its list of AR/VR devices that have received regulatory authorization. With 69 products, the list is quite a bit smaller than the 950 AI/ML devices the agency has authorized. Just six AR/VR products were authorized in the first six months of 2024, including three solutions for radiology and three targeting orthopedics. (link)

• Medscape releases free AI scribe: The medical news and education resource released a free AI ambient scribe available to all US doctors when logged into their Medscape account. (link)

• Rebrain’s AI software approved by FDA: The FDA approved Rebrain’s OptimMRI software update, which includes a new AI model to help target brain regions for treating Parkinson’s disease. (link)

• Paige releases AI-copilot: The oncology-focused AI developer released a new AI clinical summaries platform. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Hackensack Meridian + K Health: Hackensack Meridian Health announced the upcoming launch of HMH 24/7, an AI-driven primary care solution co-developed alongside K Health to provide a seamless combination of virtual and in-person care. HMH 24/7 gives patients easy access to Hackensack Meridian PCPs right from their phones, with K Health enabling a fully EHR-integrated experience that gives clinicians a panoramic view of patient medical histories and more. (link)

• UTHealth Houston + OpenAI: UTHealth Houston unveiled a partnership with OpenAI on Friday to build and deploy algorithms for use in medical training and at the patient’s bedside. The university will deploy ChatGPT Education Tool. (link)

• U of Iowa Healthcare + Nabla: University of Iowa Healthcare completed an enterprise-wide rollout of Nabla, the AI scribe vendor. In its partnership with Nabla, all faculty, advanced practice providers, and allied health professionals have access to the tool. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Qualifyze, a German provider of supplier risk management solutions to life sciences, raised $54M in Series B funding. Insight Partners led and was joined by insiders HV Capital, HarbourVest Partners, H14, and Cherry Ventures. (link)

• Chai Discovery, a six-month-old AI biology startup founded by ex-OpenAI and Meta researchers focused on AI models for drug discovery, raised $30M from OpenAI and Thrive Capital. (link)

• Candid Health, a San Francisco, CA-based revenue cycle automation platform for healthcare providers, raised $29M in Series B funding. 8VC led the round and was joined by existing investors First Round Capital, BoxGroup, and Y Combinator (link)

• Pieces Technologies, an Irving, TX-based provider of AI solutions for inpatient care teams, raised $25M from Children's Health, Concord Health Partners, OSF HealthCare, and Rittenhouse Ventures. (link)

• Viome, a Bellevue, WA-based preventative personalized healthcare company, raised $25M in Series D funding from Khosla Ventures, Bold Capital WRG Ventures, Marc Benioff, and others. (link)

• Nirvana, a NYC-based automated healthcare benefit verification platform, raised $24.2M in Series A funding. Northzone led the round and was joined by Inspired Capital, Eniac Ventures, and Surface Ventures. (link)

• Protege, a NYC-based AI training data platform, raised $10M in seed funding. CRV led the round and was joined by SV Angel, Liquid 2 Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, and others. (link)

• PathPresenter, a Montvale, N.J.-based image-sharing platform for pathology, raised $7.5M in Series A funding. Avant Bio led and was joined by Barco and Modi Ventures. (link)

• CardiaTec, an AI-powered drug discovery platform for heart disease, raised $6.5M in seed funding. Montage Ventures led, and was joined by Continuum Health Ventures, Laidlaw Scholars Ventures, and Apex Ventures. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• Patients turning to AI chatbots for medical advice (link)

• Top 10 AI-ready cities (link)

• The 'immediate value' of AI at HCA (link)

• The power of human understanding AI in healthcare (link)

• Nvidia-backed Recursion hurts AI biotechs on mixed data for lead drug (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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