Healthcare AI Guy Weekly Newsletter | 3/19

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Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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HIMSS recap

More than 30,000 health and tech professionals gathered at the country's biggest and most prestigious health IT conference — HIMSS — last week. AI was a dominant theme and conversations are shifting from hype to strategic implementation as healthcare organizations partner with tech companies to explore use cases. Many health systems are testing AI to automate mundane administrative tasks and alleviate burnout, while Big Tech continues its push into the market. Below are some of the biggest announcements from the conference:

• Ambience Healthcare, the AI operating system for healthcare orgs that just raised $70M last month, is now fully integrated with Oracle’s Cerner Millennium EHR, enabling clinicians to seamlessly interface with Ambience’s medical scribe, coding assistant, and full suite of generative AI products within their standard workflows. (link)

• Google Cloud launched Vertex AI Search for Healthcare, a genAI tool that allows providers, payors, and life science orgs to make better use of their clinical data. Users can search for information across clinical notes, scanned documents, and other data sources to find natural language answers to their questions (e.g. patient medical history). (link)

• Microsoft is leading the Trustworthy & Responsible AI Network (TRAIN), a consortium of top-tier organizations aimed at operationalizing responsible AI principles in healthcare. Nuance’s DAX Copilot also will be deployed at Stanford Medicine, WellSpan Health, and Providence. (link)

• Oracle (who acquired EHR-vendor Cerner for $28B) unveiled new capabilities in its healthcare data platform including generative AI service to simplify care management, prebuilt clinical quality analytics, and automated alerts. The enhancements include prebuilt analytics for common requirements including determinants of health, childhood wellness, immunization and chronic conditions such as diabetes. (link)

• Salesforce debuted Einstein Copilot: Health Actions, a new solution that allows healthcare workers to submit natural language prompts to summarize information, update patient and member data, and automate manual outreach. (link)

HIMSS quick hits:

• Abridge added UCI Health to its roster of health systems. (link)

• Amazon Web Services and Symplr, a healthcare operations software company, to collaborate on AI assistants to automate complex workflows, mundane tasks. (link)

• emtelligent unveiled its medical AI platform ‘emtelliPro+’. (link)

• CodaMetrix announced a $40M series B to build out AI-based revenue cycle tools. (link)

• Hyro announced a long-term strategic partnership with healthtech consulting firm Disruptive Innovations. (link)

• Innovaccer previewed its provider AI copilot, a portable tablet designed to deliver multi-solution clinical support at the point-of-care. (link)

• Meditech said its web-based Expanse EHR would integrate AI ambient clinical notetaking from vendors Suki, Augmedix, and Nuance. (link)

• Nabla partnered with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (the largest pediatric multi-specialty medical group in the US) on its clinical documentation copilot. (link)

• Talkdesk introduced Talkdesk Autopilot for Healthcare. (link)

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ChatGPT gets a body

Two weeks ago, Figure, a humanoid robotics company, and OpenAI announced a partnership to equip the Figure 01 robot with the ability to complete real-world tasks autonomously. Last week, they demonstrated Figure 01’s ability to have full conversations and deliver dexterous robot actions.

One used to think conversational embodied AI was years away… But now a humanoid robot can now have a full conversation in which the robot explains its reasoning in real time while carrying out actions.

Robots are going to transform industries, including healthcare, where labor shortages, rising costs, and staff turnover are a real problem. If digital automation is already making waves in healthcare, it is only a matter of time until physical automation makes a dent too. (link)

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Together by Renee launches ‘Together Companion’

Together by Renee is an app that uses AI to automate and simplify daily health tasks. It was created to help consumers (esp. the growing elderly population and their caretakers) with cumbersome tasks like Rx refills, remembering doctor advice, navigating complex forms, and tracking vitals.

In the US alone, there are ~80 million people who take more than 1 medication per day. Organizing the whole process around care can be confusing, disparate and burdensome but the Together by Renee app helps streamline, centralize, and guide consumers through this journey — and even more so now.

The company just launched the ‘Together Companion’ the first-ever AI-powered accurate, personal chatbot based on your actual health history, medications, current vitals, care plans, provider instructions and more. 

The Together Companion takes your care plan and recordings and merges them with actual daily vitals (that you can measure within the app), medications, daily Rx adherence (which you can log in the app) and then lets you ask any questions against all that information to get answers that are precise, contextual and tailored to your unique health situation.

A lot of people are trying health chatbots, but they can only give general, canned answers. The Together Companion is a big step forward in building a truly personalized, health companion to aid consumers in their daily care journeys. (video) (link)

Tools & Partnernships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• New Mayo Clinic program to qualify, integrate healthtech: Mayo Clinic launched its Solutions Studio program to accelerate the development, validation, and deployment of digital health tools. (link)

• AI processing speeds cancer tracking: Scientists just created a new AI tool called Path-BigBird that can sift through millions of cancer pathology reports, allowing for faster and more accurate tracking of cancer trends. Path-BigBird has the potential to significantly reduce the current 2-year lag between cancer incidence and national reporting. (link)

• South Korea deploys AI dolls for elder care: South Korean startup Hyodol AI launched an AI-powered companion doll aimed at alleviating loneliness among the country's rapidly aging population. Hyodol's AI doll uses LLMs to engage in full conversations and provide emotional support to seniors living alone. South Korea's local governments have embraced the dolls, deploying around 7,000 units so far. (link)

• Surgery prep with Apple’s Vision Pro: Two spinal surgeries at London’s Cromwell Hospital were aided by Apple’s Vision Pro headset, worn by a scrub nurse to prepare surgical tools and monitor progress. Earlier last week, Apple revealed plans for the device’s use in hip and knee replacement surgeries. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Northwell + Playback Health: Northwell Health entered into a three-year partnership with health tech company Playback Health to use its AI-based platform, Notes, to generate EMR notes from patient and physician conversations. (link)

• Hyro + WVU Medicine: WVU Medicine is deploying Hyro’s suite of AI assistants across its websites and call centers over the next three years, with the goal of streamlining patient and employee interactions while boosting operational efficiency. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Zephyr AI, a Virginia-based developer of AI algorithms for precision medicine processes, raised $111M in series A funding from Revolution Growth, Eli Lilly & Company, Jeff Skoll, and EPIQ Capital Group. (link)

• Hippocratic AI, a company building a healthcare-specific large language model, raised $53M in series A funding. Premji Invest and General Catalyst co-led with participation from SV Angel, Memorial Hermann Health System, Andreessen Horowitz, Cincinnati Children’s, WellSpan Health, and Universal Health Services. (link)

• Codametrix, a company that provides automated coding technology for healthcare billing and revenue cycle management, raised $40M in series B funding. Transformation Capital led and was joined by existing investors SignalFire and Frist Cressey Ventures. (link)

• HiLabs, an AI-powered health tech company helping plans improve member experience, raised $39M in series B funding, led by Denali Growth Partners and Eight Roads Ventures. (link)

• Pi Health, a Massachustes-based platform designed to streamline clinical trial processes for cancer therapies and treatments for other diseases, raised $30M in Series A funding. AlleyCorp and Obvious Ventures led the round and were joined by Invus Capital and others. (link)

• CureSkin, an AI-driven dermatology platform raised $20M in a Series B funding round led by HealthQuad. JSW Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Sharp Ventures also participated. (link)

• Assort Health, an SF-based developer of an AI bot for healthcare call centers, raised $3.5M in funding. Quiet Capital led the round and was joined by Four Acres, Tau Ventures, and angel investors. (link)

• ThinkSono, a London-based medical technology company specializing in ultrasound AI guidance solutions, raised £2.1M in funding. (link)

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

• Innovaccer + Pharmacy Quality Solutions (PQS), Innovaccer, a healthtech company, acquired PQS, which connects payors and providers to standardized tracking of medication quality measures, plus value-based reimbursement programs focused on adherence, outcomes, and safety. Innovaccer is quickly delivering on its ecosystem approach to integrating payors, providers, and pharmacies through a connected AI-enabled data infrastructure. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• EU approves first-of-its-kind AI law (link)

• Experts discuss navigating ethical AI use in medicine (link)

• Physicians increasingly using AI (link)

• Concerns raised about lack of standards, regulation for AI (link)

• Ambient clinical documentation talk of exhibition floor at HIMSS (link)

• Why agetech is worth your while, notes about AI, etc (link)

• Experts: providers need to know how to build trust as technologies evolve (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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