Going to ask again about HealWell - they are on an acquisition tear and seem to be very AI-focused. Has…
Healthcare AI News 5/8/24
News
The American Hospital Association asks Congress to employ flexibility in any decisions to regulate AI in healthcare, proposing use of a sliding scale that is based on risk and the level of human oversight that is involved. AHA says that a one-size-fits-all regulatory approach could stifle innovation, saying that a better model is that of the FDA’s guidelines for defining Software as a Medical Device.
Apple announces the 2024 IPad Pro, the company’s first product to feature the newly announced, AI-optimized M4 chip. Prices start at $999 before trade-in credit for the 11-inch, one-pound model with Ultra Retina XDR display, 256 GB, and 12 MP front and back cameras. The company is speculated to be preparing all of its hardware to run AI without further upgrades, and the Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is working on a chip to run AI software in data centers.
Business
Karius, whose early warning system diagnoses infectious disease by using AI to analyze a form of DNA from blood samples, raises $100 million in Series C funding. The company will use the proceeds to expand beyond its 400 US hospital customers of Karius Test, which can detect 1,000 pathogens from a single blood sample.
Opmed.ai, which uses AI to optimize surgery scheduling and resource allocation, raises $15 million in a Series A round.
Expion Health, which offers pharmacy and medical cost management solutions for payers, develops an AI-driven tool for responding to RFPs, which increases efficiency and reduces errors in its contracts in which it accepts financial risk.
OpenAI is working on a search feature for ChatGPT that would perform real-time web searches and return detailed information with citations, competing with Google’s search that includes paid ads and SEO-optimized, low-quality sites. Google generates $200 billion in annual search engine revenue, which represents about 80% of its total.
Research
Experts from drug maker Lilly say that AI will soon be able to design new drugs by using its own thinking instead of being trained on human-created datasets. They believe that even AI’s hallucinations will provide value by analyzing non-existent proteins within models.
Ohio State researchers train AI on de-identified medical claims data to predict the impact of available medical interventions on patient outcomes, which could supplement randomized clinical trials and explore new uses for existing drugs.
A UCSF study of emergency room visits finds that AI performed triage based on acuity as accurately as physicians. The authors note that since the commonly used Emergency Severity Index (ESI) is a rules-based triage scoring system that is straightforward for clinicians to calculate, AI might outperform them when making decisions that are based on both ESI score and patient details, such as answering difficult questions such as, “We have two patients and one available resuscitation bed – which one should get it?”
Other
A Mother Jones article says that AI chatbots not only haven’t eliminated health misinformation, they have made it worse. It says that GPT can’t tell the difference between scientific information and the information it crawls from questionable websites, refers users to sites that sell scientifically unproven health products, and is easily fooled by information that sounds authoritative but isn’t. A science communication professor says that AI, unlike humans, doesn’t have the capacity for critical thinking, applying skepticism, and seeking out facts that disprove inaccurate information. I replicated the authors question to Microsoft Copilot about alternative cancer treatment programs, which included a link to the website of for-profit, cash-only Cancer Center for Healing, whose physician owner sells cancer treatments that have not been FDA approved.
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There will be a plethora of firms diving into the AI ocean of ‘solutions’ over the next three years. But in the end, say in year five, the only ones that will survive are the ones that can cull the wheat (valid, trusted data) from the shaft (web garbage). Given the massive amount of trash that is posted on the internet every minute this will be a never ending monumental task. It will be very interesting too see who and how it can be accomplished. Till then it will continue to be an AI GIGO word.
Another concern is if it takes too long to sort out and too many people get burned while we wait; will we give up on AI? Or will the government just shut it down, or maybe the government will require a splash notice on every AI web site that says, “USE OF THIS TOOL COULD BE HAZARD TO YOUR HEALTH (or business, family, pocket book, or…) or AND MAY CAUSE SUDDEN DEATH”?
We’ll see…
Sorry Frank, the AI genie is never going back in the bottle. If history is any guide, you can expect corporate consolidation (ie. the Magnificent 7 will buy up all the most successful AI solutions) and plenty of lawsuits.
This is correct, I’d bet on it.
Once a technology becomes inexpensive enough, accessible enough, and the potential users become aware? It explodes into the cullture.
For how many years did the mainframe coterie complain about PC’s? Did that complaining accomplish anything? I’ve seen endless poorly designed spreadsheets and Access databases. They are lumpy and awful and they get some important job done so they survive despite everything. Smartphones are simultaneous productivity sucks, security weak points, and essential productivity tools.
Cosmos is correct, AI will both bless and curse us. The genie is out.