Healthcare AI News 7/2/25

News

England’s NHS will enhance its patient app with an AI-powered assistant called My Companion, which it describes as a “ChatGPT for the NHS,” that helps users review their health information and explore care options. A separate feature, My Choices, will let patients compare providers based on wait times, clinical outcomes, and satisfaction scores.

Duke Medicine Chief Health Information Officer Eric Poon, MD, MPH says that ambient scribing is being used in 70% of Duke’s primary care visits. He notes that the technology saves him two hours on his own clinic days and admits that he hadn’t realized how much of his focus had been consumed by acting as a “courtroom transcriptionist.”

China-based Ant Group launches AQ, an AI app that lets users consult with AI avatars of real physicians before receiving priority access to care scheduling. The company says that AQ stands for “answer your question,” an English-focused name that suggests plans for a wider rollout. Ant, which is affiliated with Alibaba, operates Alipay, one of the country’s two major mobile payment systems. The company is increasingly focused on offering health-related services that it says are used by 800 million people.

CMS announces WISeR, a pilot project that will use technologies such as AI to expedite Medicare prior authorization for services that are vulnerable to fraud, waste, or inappropriate use.

Business

Sweden-based startup Tandem Health raises $50 million in a Series A funding round to further develop its Europe-focused ambient documentation system.

Website protection vendor Cloudflare is testing a pay-per-crawl system that allows content owners to either block AI training web crawlers entirely or charge them a fee for access.

Research

AI-powered drug discovery and design advances from theoretical to actual, as an AI-designed drug reaches phase 2a clinical trials. Rentosertib shows safety and efficacy in the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. AI was also used to generate the target before designing the molecule itself.

Mayo Clinic researchers develop an AI tool that can identify the brain activity patterns of nine types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, from a single PET scan.

Other

Bioinformatics researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center find that rural US medical centers face significant barriers to adopting AI. They conclude that limited data availability, lack of infrastructure, and inadequate staffing could create an AI divide between urban and rural hospitals that can be addressed through research, partnerships, and policies.

People are seeking advice from ChatGPT on how to inject themselves with facial filler at home to puff up their lips and cheeks.

Contacts

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