Healthcare AI Guy Weekly Newsletter | 8/15

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Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, Neuralink, raises $280 million

Neuralink just raised $280M, bringing total funding for Neuralink up to $640M! The $280M in Series D funding was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. The firm has invested in other Musk projects, namely The Boring Company and SpaceX -- not too shabby!

While Neuralink didn't say what the funds will be used for, they tweeted that they are developing a next-generation robot to reduce surgery time while improving patient safety…

Aside from speculation, the company has made exciting progress in its development of implantable chips for direct communication between the brain and devices. In April 2021, the company demonstrated its tech by having a monkey play the video game Pong with just its mind. In May 2023, Neuralink received FDA approval to start human clinical trials of its solution.

Neuralink's mission is to "create a generalized brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs" Innovative, but as of 2023, I'm a bit wary to implant any kind of AI chip in my body. In the distant future, however, it will most probably become the norm as the line between man and machine starts to blur. (link)

Bain & Company: generative AI in healthcare today

Bain & Company released a report revealing that out of the 94 health system executives surveyed 75% said generative AI has reached a turning point in its ability to reshape the industry but only 6% have an established strategy.

The AI wave is coming on the back of a tough year financially for providers, as they cite resource constraints, lack of technical expertise, and regulation as the biggest barriers to fully adopting generative AI in healthcare.

However, in the near term, health system execs ranked improving clinical documentation, structuring and analyzing patient data, and optimizing workflows as their top three priorities.

Looking ahead 2-5 years, executives are most interested in predictive analytics, clinical decision support, and treatment recommendations. (link)

Doximity includes AI updates in Q1 earnings

Doximity, the online platform for doctors for medical news, telehealth tools, and case collaboration, just reported Q1 earnings. The company covered its use of AI on the latest earnings call and provided details on its DocsGPT for Enterprise offering.

DocsGPT launched in February and is a workflow tool that can generate clinical correspondence, denial appeals letters, procedure notes, progress notes, referrals, patient education, and more — supported by a robust prompt library. Q1'24 marked a major milestone as they signed their first DocsGPT Enterprise deals with three top health systems.

Doximity added new features to its DocsGPT enterprise offering, including HIPAA security and admin guardrails. Their recent survey of 322 AI-using docs predicted that AI will soon save them each 13 hours per week, 6 in their EHR and 7 in office work, where Doximity is focused.

The company sees its HIPAA-compliant offering as a major tailwind. They plan to leverage their HIPAA-secure environment with a business associate agreement that they already have in place with over 200 health systems to really roll this out quickly. It will be exciting to see how Doximity’s tools stack up to big tech as competition in the healthcare AI space heats up! (link)

Miscellaneous 🔍

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

• ChatGPT costs OpenAI ~$700K per day and bankruptcy could be on the horizon by 2024 (link)

• AI is building antibodies better than humans (link)

• Humans + machines: A win-win for medicine (link)

• More empathetic: Physicians or ChatGPT? (link)

• AI gives payers opportunity to automate processes, but safety concerns remain (link)

• Although hospital leaders tout AI, physicians and nurses are worried (link)

• Hospitals turning to AI for administrative tasks (link)

• Microsoft partners with Epic so health systems can use Azure large instances (link)

• AI beauty firm Oddity Tech shines, with room for more growth (link)

• Automated microscope system detects malaria almost as well as experts (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

📈 Neuralink: a brain implant startup raised $280M in Series D funding. Founders Fund led the round. (link)

📈 Capstan Medical: a developer of robotic-assisted heart valve surgery tech raised $31.4M in Series B funding. Eclipse Ventures led the round and was joined by Intuitive Ventures and Puma Venture Capital. (link)

📈 Endear Health: a provider of AI-assisted onboarding and administrative tools for hospitals based in Maimi raised $8M. Optum Ventures led and was joined by 8VC and Blue Cross of Idaho. (link)

Tool Box 🧰

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

🔧 CalmWave: CalmWave announced its ‘Transparent AI’ platform to support mission-critical decision-making in the ICU. The platform ingests a year’s worth of hospital data and provides clinicians with a holistic view of the information to make the most informed decisions regarding alarm management and patient care. Its transparent AI approach reduces non-actionable alarms by as much as 83% when compared to the same number of manual alarm limit adjustments. (link)

🔧 Cigna + Virgin Pulse: Cigna is partnering with Virgin Pulse for an AI-powered platform to empower consumers to take control of their mental, physical and social health through better choices and setting achievable goals. Members with Cigna can set personal health goals, track daily metrics, and get real-time feedback and guidance based on their data. Through myCigna, the connected and personalized health experience will support approximately 11 million customers. (link)

🔧 UPMC: UPMC AI tool trained on reducing post-operative deaths shows promise. (link)

🔧 Vital: Vital, a health tech firm, launched an AI-powered doctor-to-patient translator to instantly turn highly technical medical terminology into plain language. (link)

AI Images of the Week 📸

Funny memes and pics from around the web…