Healthcare AI News 11/13/24

News

Google launches Learn About, a conversational AI learning companion that helps users learn about any topic.

Inovalon founder and CEO Keith Dunleavy, MD donates $6 million to his alma mater, Harvard Medical School, to expand education in AI in healthcare. 

Business

AI-powered doc-in-the-box manufacturer Forward, which said at the November 2023 launch of its CarePod that it hoped to deploy 3,200 of the machines in the next year, shuts down. The company had raised $650 million in funding. Former employees said key problems were lack of patient interest, skeptical commercial building landlords, blood draw technology failures that forced the company to stop offering lab tests, and machines that left patients stuck inside. Forward managed to install just five of the devices, which cost $1 million each to build. My analysis of the original announcement wasn’t optimistic.

Maverick Medical AI launches CodePilot, which offers real-time medical coding and MIPS/MACRA compliance notifications. 

Apple is preparing to launch its first AI hardware device, an Echo-like wall mounted smart display for homes that will allow users to control apps, use FaceTime as an intercom, play music, and eventually to operate a robotic arm.

Research

Johns Hopkins researchers train a robot by showing it videos of surgical procedures, after which the da Vinci Surgical System robot performed as well as a human doctor in manipulating a needle, lifting tissue, and suturing. The imitation learning involved videos that were recorded on cameras that were attached to da Vinci robots all over the world. The robot even learned behaviors that weren’t contained in the videos, such as picking up a dropped needle.

Researchers use AI-analyzed computer vision to predict neurological changes in NICU babies.

Other

A UCSD hospital neurology ICU nurse who is also the nursing union rep says that he is terrified by “the creep of AI in our hospitals.” He observes:

• A billionaire Qualcomm executive funded the hospital’s new construction, a technical connection that he speculates as to why “they dive headfirst into this AI thing.”
• The hospital replaced an Epic patient acuity application with an AI-based one that he says “felt like magic, but not in a good way” because it eliminated nurse involvement and didn’t explain its logic.
• He says that ambient documentation is like mass surveillance that will be used to “track nurses” as was done with RFID tracking tags.
• He concludes that the real goal of applying AI isn’t patient safety, but to increase nurse efficiency and make them “operators of the machines.”

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.