Healthcare AI Guy Weekly Newsletter | 2/13

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Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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Apple Vision Pro for healthcare

Apple recently launched its Vision Pro virtual reality headset and at least three health systems bought various sets to test a variety of use cases.

The Vision Pros are not cheap at $3.5k, compared to the Meta Quest 3 at $500, but Cedars-Sinai, Boston Children’s Hospital, Sharp Healthcare, and other health systems made the investment. These health systems are looking to test applications aimed at training and educating clinicians, providing virtual therapy and more. Cedars-Sinai is creating a mental health app and Sharp Healthcare is partnering with EHR vendor Epic to investigate use cases.

Could Apple Vision Pro headset be a new frontier for health systems and healthcare? One of our favorite use cases is improved training and real-world simulation (similar to what training OMS provides, which we reported on a few weeks back). We’ll be eagerly watching these early use cases develop! (link) (tweet)

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Andreessen Horowitz is bullish on AI + wellness

The famed VC shop Andreessen Horowitz, a16z, released its “Abundance Agenda”, which details how AI will transform consumer technology. They believe with AI consumers will experience abundance in creativity and productivity, in their relationships and social experiences, and in personal growth across dimensions like education, wellness, and financial health.

Focusing on the wellness pillar, a16z is betting that with AI, everyone can have a personal wellness team that seamlessly integrates with and learns from existing health data, to act proactively at exactly the right time. This will bring high-quality physical and mental healthcare, which is currently inaccessible to many consumers, to the masses. We are also bullish, that AI can provide all consumers with judgment-free experts who can listen and plan a better future.

See below for a breakdown of a16z’s investment criteria for AI + wellness. (link)

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CMS limits AI usage for payers

Last week CMS notified Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers that they could use AI and other tech to assess coverage decisions, but the tools cannot override benefits rules and medical necessity standards.

UnitedHealth Group, Humana and The Cigna Group are all fighting lawsuits alleging they utilize AI and algorithms to routinely decline coverage for post-acute care and other services. CMS states that MA insurers may use software to “predict how long a patient may require post-acute care but cannot use that prediction as the basis for limiting the duration of services.” In addition, “insurers may not use AI and other technologies to determine whether to cover an inpatient hospital admission without considering factors specific to each patient.”

This will be an ongoing battle but some guidelines and restrictions for what payers can and can’t do with AI is likely a good thing for trust in the industry and acceleration of AI in healthcare. (link)

Tool Box 🧰

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

🔧 AI to help the visually impaired see: Researchers introduced AiSee, a wearable device that utilizes a camera, AI algorithms, and headphones to help visually impaired individuals "see" and understand their surroundings. (link)

🔧 AI audio that detects COVID: Researchers have developed an audio-based AI system that uses ML algorithms to analyze cough and breath sounds to detect COVID-19, serving as a non-invasive diagnostic tool. (link)

🔧 AI smart glasses: Frame by Brilliant Labs are wearable glasses with AI vision, audio, and web search. (link)

🔧 Kaiser’s positive pilot with Nabla’s AI-scribe tool: Kaiser Permanente published a report in NEJM Catalyst about its pilot with Nabla's AI co-pilot tool for automating medical scribing. The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) offered the tool to 10,000 providers in Northern California. Over 10 weeks, the tool was used by ~3.5k TPMG physicians across 303k+ patient encounters - with 968 of those providers using the tool more than 100 times. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

📈 Ambience Healthcare: an AI operating system for healthcare organizations based in SF raised $70M in Series B funding. Kleiner Perkins and OpenAI Startup Fund co-led, and were joined by insiders a16z and Optum Ventures. (link)

📈 Unlearn: an AI company developing digital twins of clinical trial participants based in SF raised $50M in Series C funding. Altimeter Capital led the round and was joined by Radical Ventures, Wittington Ventures, Mubadala Capital, Epic Ventures, and Necessary Venture Capital. (link)

📈 Ezra: an AI company focused on MRI imaging and cancer detection based in NY raised $21M. Healthier Capital and FirstMark Capital co-led, and were joined by others. (link)

📈 Aizon: an AI startup focused on pharma manufacturing based in SF raised $20M in Series C funding. NewVale Capital led, and was joined by insiders Atlantic Bridge, Crosslink Capital, and Uncork Capital. (link)

📈 Vektor Medical: a maker of AI-powered arrhythmia analysis tech raised $16M in Series A funding co-led by TVM Capital Life Science and Solas BioVentures. (link)

📈 Elemind: a developer of wearable neurotechnology designed to improve the user’s health raised $12M in seed funding from Village Global, LDV Partners, Embark Ventures, E14 Fund, and others. (link)

📈 Tortus: a provider of documentation automation solutions for health clinics based in London raised $4.2M in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures. (link)

📈 DeepLook Medical: developer of AI-powered breast cancer detection technology raised $1.7M in seed funding from Connecticut Innovations, Tidal River, Angel Investor Forum, OKG Capital, Werth Ventures, and others. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• Survey on AI sentiment from healthcare leaders (link)

• ONC seeks to avoid delay of AI transparency rule (link)

• The US government last week formed the AI Safety Institute (link)

• Executives: healthcare organizations need process for AI governance (link)

• Sam Altman seeks 7 trillion dollars to reshape the chip/AI business (link)

• Google launches new, powerful AI model Gemini (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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