Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 9/24

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Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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IVP Health AI 35: What to know, who to watch

IVP, the tech-focused VC, published the ‘IVP Health AI 35’ which covers some of the firm’s favorite companies creating value for patients, providers, pharmaceutical companies and payers right now.

• Patients — establishing trust and improving care: AI-enabled hardware and medical devices, academic search engines powered by AI, and AI-native agents and coaches are exciting areas of focus. Tools like Hello Heart and WHOOP use AI to provide tailored health plans and real-time data, enhancing care.

• Providers — reducing the admin burden on healthcare workers: Workflow automation, medical imaging, coding, and automating pharmacy operations are key areas for IVP. Solutions like Abridge automate notes, while SmarterDx and CodaMetrix are using AI to ensure that relevant information and diagnoses are accounted for, helping close a hospital system’s revenue integrity gap.

• Pharma — making drug discovery faster and cheaper: Generative AI accelerates drug discovery by shortening development timelines, reducing R&D costs, and optimizing drug candidates. Companies like Cradle Bio streamline protein engineering, transforming treatments from flu to cancer.

• Payers — reducing the burden of regulation and costs: Generative AI helps health plans comply with changing regulations and optimize tasks like claims processing and fraud detection while improving care access, efficiency, and value-based healthcare delivery. (link)(tweet)

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Are patients ready for GenAI in healthcare?

Bain & Company’s survey delivers an interesting twist: patients feel more at ease with generative AI diagnosing radiology scans than handling something as simple as answering the phone at their doctor’s office. This likely reflects discomfort with engaging directly with AI rather than confidence in its medical knowledge. Surprisingly, less than half of patients are comfortable with any GenAI application, with note-taking during appointments being the only one to cross the 50% mark (including neutral votes). Healthcare workers are cautiously optimistic about AI easing administrative burdens but worry it could disrupt patient-provider relationships. Building trust in GenAI will require solid early user experiences—one step at a time. (link)(tweet)

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Open-source and local AI models should be leveraged for healthcare

In recent years, LLM-based chatbots have gained attention for generating poetry and engaging in conversations, with some models having hundreds of billions of parameters, accessible only online. However, two key trends have emerged: open-weight versions of LLMs, where training data is publicly available for local use, and scaled-down models that can run on consumer hardware, rivaling older, larger models. These developments allow researchers to use LLMs locally, saving costs, ensuring privacy, and improving reproducibility. As a result, scientists can now run powerful AI models on personal devices for applications ranging from research to personalized AI assistants. (link)

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Tools & Partnerships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• Elon Musk’s Neuralink wins FDA breakthrough tag for Blindsight device: Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain-chip startup, said this week it's received breakthrough device status by the FDA for its implant aimed at restoring vision. (link)

• Dandelion Health launches AI marketplace for clinical trials: Healthtech startup Dandelion Health launched a clinical AI marketplace that merges third-party algorithms and Dandelion's data platform and model validation capabilities to supplement clinical trials. (link)

• AI early warning system to prevent unexpected patient deaths: A Canadian study showed that an AI early warning system reduced unexpected patient deaths by 26%, monitoring vital signs and alerting staff to intervene earlier. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Nebraska Medicine + Palantir: Omaha-based Nebraska Medicine has signed a new five-year, multimillion-dollar deal with data analytics company Palantir to predict hospital bed necessity, manage the supply chain and make staffing recommendations. (link)

• AvaSure + Oracle + NVIDIA: The virtual nursing platform is collaborating with the EHR vendor and the GPU developer on a new “virtual concierge” for bedside patient engagement and to allow bedside nurses to request support, translation, and more. (link)

• Inova + Hyro: Inova Health is integrating Hyro’s communications capabilities with NICE’s CXone customer experience platform to improve patient and staff satisfaction through new AI features. Hyro’s AI voice and chat assistants will be embedded within Inova’s newly upgraded NICE platform to automate routine tasks and provide more self-service options. (link)

• Ballad Health + Andor Health: Johnson City, TN-based Ballad Health has partnered with Andor Health to deploy its AI-powered virtual care platform, ThinkAndor, with the goal of expanding access to healthcare for rural populations. (link)

• Mount Sinai + IBM + Deliberate AI: Mount Sinai (along with researchers from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Carnegie Mellon), IBM, and the mental health AI solutions vendor, Deliberate AI, are partnering on a study to discover clinical signatures to predict and support clinical decision-making in treating mental health disorders. (link)

• LifeBridge Health + Care.ai: The Maryland health system announced the implementation of the virtual nursing solution at one of its hospitals for discharge, documentation, and other patient support needs. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Neo Medical, a Swiss developer of an AR system for spinal surgery, raised a $68m Series B led by Gyrus Capital. (link)

• Pictor Labs, a CA-based AI-powered virtual staining platform for histopathology, raised $30M in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by M Ventures and the venture capital arm of Merck KGaA. (link)

• Nirvana, a health tech company that uses ML/AI to offer radical transparency to eligibility and insurance verification, announced it had raised $24.2M in Series A funding. Northzone led the round, including Inspired Capital, Eniac Ventures, and Surface Ventures. (link)

• Hippocratic AI, the company building the first safety-focused LLM for healthcare, received an investment from Nvidia's venture capital arm, NVentures, along with Greycroft and Lee Shapiro of 7Wire Ventures of $17M as an add-on to Hippocratic AI's recently closed extended series A round. (link)

• Ferrum Health, a Sunnyvale, CA-based AI deployment platform for health systems, raised $16M in Series A funding. Foundry led the round and was joined by Catalyst by Wellstar, Headwaters Ventures, UnitedHealthcare Accelerator, and existing investors Blumberg Capital, Cercano, GSR, and others. (link)

• Scribenote, a Canada-based AI-powered medical scribe for veterinarians, raised $8.2M in seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined by Inovia Capital, the Velocity Fund, and angel investors. (link)

• Cercle, a CA-based women’s healthcare data insights AI company, raised $6M in seed funding. Outsiders Fund led the round and was joined by FemHealth Ventures, CGHealth Ventures, Rogue Women’s Fund, existing investors Sheryl Sandberg, Tom Bernthal’s SBVP fund, and angel investors. (link)

• CUDIS, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based wearable technology company, raised $5 million in funding. Draper Associates led the round and was joined by Skybridge, Penrose, SNZ, and others. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• Oscar Health’s early observations on OpenAI o1-preview (link)

• Why this rural hospital is betting on AI for retention (link)

• ChatGPT, MD and the future of care (link)

• The 'long-term vision' of AI at Mass General Brigham (link)

• Eric Topol on how AI is changing healthcare now (link)

• Texas AG and health AI company settle inaccurate advertising suit (link)

• BlackRock and Microsoft to invest $30B to build new AI data centers (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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