Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

• Hippocratic AI emerged from stealth mode May 16 by announcing it’s received $50 million in seed funding. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company says its large language model is the first commercial LLM offering that’s specifically designed for applications in healthcare. It’s also geared to be patient-friendly, safety-focused, adept at bedside manners—and has bested ChatGPT on scores for medical certification exams. Anything else? Check the announcement.
   
• Kaiser Permanente has set aside $3 million for U.S. health systems that come up with AI tools for improving patient outcomes in the real world. The new program, called AIM-HI for the Augmented Intelligence in Medicine and Healthcare Initiative, will award grants of as much as $750,000 to three to five provider organizations showing improvement in diagnostic decision-making thanks to AI. Announcement here, details on applying plus request for proposals here.  
   
• Market research firm Signify counts more than 200 independent vendors selling AI-based software for medical imaging. Many of these are startups, but the top 25 have rung up almost three-quarters of some $5 billion in venture capital funding raised since 2015. Top five: HeartFlow ($655 million), Shukun Technology ($305 million), Cleerly ($279 million), Viz.ai ($252 million), and Aidoc ($238 million). Full report offered here in exchange for contact info.
   
• Australian AI ethicist Stefan Harrer is proposing a broad system for responsibly using, designing and governing generative AI applications in healthcare. Detailing his vision in The Lancet eBioMedicine, Harrer warns that the technology, if developed and deployed without dedicated human supervision, won’t rise about the status of dangerous party trick. Journal paper here, summary here.
   
• Dallas-based Steer Health has launched an AI-outfitted platform to help hospitals better handle inpatient requests for food, medicine and housekeeping. The product is called Steer Concierge. Announcement. Blog post.
   
• Google Cloud has rolled out two new AI tools for researchers in the life sciences. One speeds drug discovery. The other interprets genomic data for precision medicine. Announcement here, blog post here.
   
• Piqued by ChatGPT’s prowess with medical board exams, radiology educators are suggesting a fresh teaching moment is upon their kind. Rather than preparing residents to simply pass tests—heck, machines with limited cognitive capacity can do that—the academics urge peers to let algorithms aid the training of future radiologists, “but not at the cost of critical thinking and communication.” Opinion piece in Radiology here, Health Imaging synopsis here.
   
• The World Health Organization is losing sleep over large language AI’s animal magnetism. Like a parent after awaiting a teen’s return from a late first date, it’s calling on potential end-user organizations to resist the technology’s surface charms enough to insist on trustworthiness before letting any models worm their way into an engagement. By WHO’s lights, must-have traits include transparency, inclusion, public engagement, expert supervision and rigorous evaluation. Statement here.