Healthcare AI Guy Weekly Newsletter | 1/23

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Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

1/

AI skin cancer detection device gets FDA approval

Healthtech company DermaSensor received FDA approval for its handheld device that uses AI to effectively detect the three most common skin cancers in real time during office visits. The details on the product below:

• In an FDA study, the device correctly identified 96% of skin cancers, with a 97% chance of correctly ruling out cancer.

• The non-invasive device works by shining light on the skin and analyzing cellular patterns with an integrated AI algorithm.

• DermaSensor said its device will utilize a subscription model, priced at $199/mo for five patients, or unlimited use at $399/mo.

• DermaSensor envisions improving collaboration between PCPs and dermatologists — allowing point-of-care access that can lead to quicker diagnoses and referrals.

DermaSensor's clearance represents a milestone in AI's role in healthcare — 99% of skin cancers are curable if detected early. This will save lives. Even though approval for the product took 12 years, hopefully, this paves the way for more AI-powered medical innovations. (link)

2/ 

Microsoft to integrate AI tool with Epic

Microsoft portfolio company, Nuance, and healthcare software company, Epic, announced the general availability of DAX Copilot for Epic. What that means is that Nuance’s ambient documentation solution, DAX Copilot, will be fully integrated into Epic’s EHR. DAX Copilot for Epic drafts clinical notes directly in Epic’s mobile app for immediate physician review which is pretty slick.

Although thousands of providers already use DAX Copilot, the Epic partnership will supercharge expansion, starting with the 150+ provider orgs already lined up to deploy the new integration. As we predicted for 2024, the big players will continue getting bigger and extending their lead. In this case, however, the real winners are physicians, as this should help save time. (link)

3/

Hospitals are starting to sell custom-built tech for new revenue streams

Hospitals are increasingly marketing technological tools they developed in-house to establish new revenue streams and as well as improve patients’ health and ease the burden of administrative bloat. We’ve covered some recent examples before in the newsletter but notable ones are listed below:

• Mayo Clinic: During the JPM24 conference, Mayo Clinic announced a multi-million dollar partnership with AI startup Cerebras and “said whatever the two co-develop would be treated as Mayo’s intellectual property.” (link)

• Mass General Brigham: Mass General highlighted AI as an opportunity by helping companies develop or guiding them through the regulatory approval process for algorithms. Mass General also has commercialized 26 AI products, one slide at JPM24 claimed. (link)

• Tampa General Hospital: Tampa General recently spun a separate company out of its hospital-at-home program, where patients get devices to monitor their vital signs remotely and regular visits from clinicians at their homes.

Overall, health systems are increasingly seeing the AI boom as a new revenue stream and even willing to collaborate with competitors, both because of financial strain and because AI models need to be validated on vast data sets representative of diverse populations, which individual health systems may not have. (link)

Tool Box 🧰

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

🔧 AI trained on life histories predicts early death risk: an AI model trained on the life events of 6 million Danish citizens proved highly accurate at predicting mortality — outperforming tools traditionally used by insurers in assessing risk. (link)

🔧 AI to diagnose rheumatic heart disease: Researchers at Children’s National have developed a new AI-powered tool for diagnosing rheumatic heart disease long before a patient needs surgery. In collaboration with staff at the Uganda Heart Institute, the team designed a system that will allow trained nurses to screen and diagnose children early on when they can still be treated with penicillin for less than $1 a year. (link)

🔧 enduco: Endurance training platform enduco adds AI “Coach Squad” for continuous support. (link)

🔧 January AI: January AI sets up new feature translating food photos to predicted glucose response. (link)

🔧 Mentalport: Streamline daily mental wellness. (link)

🤝 Rad AI + Google: AI radiology startup Rad AI is partnering with Google to use its cloud and LLMs to streamline workflows and reduce radiologists’ administrative burdens. Under the agreement, Rad AI will use Google’s cloud platform and AI tools, including MedLM, a family of foundation models fine-tuned for healthcare use cases, including Gemini-based models in the future. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

📈 Forta: an SF-based company looking to improve access to clinical care through the use of AI raised $55M in Series A funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Exor Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and others. (link)

📈 Avante: a health enterprise software startup based in Seattle raised $10M. Fuse Venture Partners led, and was joined by Ascend.vc and HighSage Ventures. (link)

📈 XRHealth: a Boston-based developer of VR and AR tools for chronic pain, anxiety, fibromyalgia, and dementia, raised $6M. Asabys Partners led, and was joined by Nova Prime Fund. (link)

✅ Innovaccer +_Cured: Innovaccer, maker of digital tools for healthcare, acquired Cured, a leading digital marketing and CRM platform for healthcare, for an undisclosed sum. Cured uses data and AI to help healthcare orgs boost patient experiences. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• Elevance Health wants to use AI to simplify and personalize healthcare. Here's how (link)

• Hospital execs wonder if General Catalyst’s acquisition of Summa Health is future of healthcare (link)

• Almost 20% of healthcare CEOs expect AI to replace staff in 2024 (link)

• Aetna executive stresses importance of human involvement with AI (link)

• AI takes center stage at Davos World Economic Forum (link)

• Mayo Clinic President discusses future of AI in healthcare. (link)

• Academic hospital/tech firms part of nonprofit to test healthcare AI tools (link)

• Alphabet CFO touts potential of AI in healthcare (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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