Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

• More than half of nonprofit enterprises expect AI to make downsizing inevitable over the next three years. Does that include the roughly 60% of U.S. hospitals that consider themselves citizens of the not-for-profit world? The Chronicle of Philanthropy doesn’t answer that question, but it does take up seven others. Some might be of interest to healthcare fundraisers and hospital development pros. Three samples: What tools can help me get started? Will I fall behind if I don’t use AI? Will AI take my job? Whole article here.
   
• If wildfires represent a threat to public health, then fire-busting AI could be considered a form of AI in healthcare. Maybe that’s a stretch. Or maybe not. Fighting fires is, after all, a potentially lifesaving use of the technology. As the Associated Press reports, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has been testing a system that feeds an algorithm image data from more than 1,000 cameras. Staff members still have to confirm sightings that the AI suspects as dangerous smoke. But the system helps reduce human fatigue, which itself can contribute to slow response times. Read the rest.
   
• A pair of high-school students has launched a healthcare AI startup to help assess brain health. Their first product uses a smartphone with a gaze-tracking app. It needs just 30 seconds to acquire data that physicians could use to pre-screen for dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other cognitive illnesses. The two are calling their company Vytal. “Our primary value proposition is the accessibility that we’re adding to the usage of AI,” co-founder Sai Mattapalli, the company’s COO and CFO, tells PYMNTS.com. “Because of the skepticism that currently exists with AI, the best way to convince people to actually use it is by giving them value through it.” Vytal website here.
   
• Aficionados of augmented, mixed and virtual realities in healthcare have a new peer-reviewed journal to call their own. It’s the Journal of Medical Extended Reality. Published by Mary Ann Liebert Inc. as the official journal of the American Medical Extended Reality Association, it’s happily open-access. Inaugural editor-in-chief Brennan Spiegel, MD, of Cedars-Sinai and team are already seeking submissions. Details here.
   
• Regulating AI, embedding it into existing systems and keeping up with its accelerating pace of change: 3 of the year’s “top 10 enterprise AI trends—so far.” Technology journalist Maria Korolov justifies these choices and outlines the rest of her selections in an opinion piece published by CIO.
   
• The FDA has cleared software from AIRAmed (Tuebingen, Germany) that uses deep learning to measure brain volumes on MRI. The company says the offering is designed to help physicians detect, differentiate and monitor Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Announcement.
   
• Orion Health (Auckland, New Zealand) and Pieces Technologies (Dallas) are partnering to combine the former’s health intelligence platform with the latter’s AI capabilities. The companies say one pitch point to come of the collaboration will be a way to let clinicians know “what’s happened to their patients since they last saw them through easily accessible clinical prose.”
   
• From AIin.Healthcare’s news partners:
   
  • Cardiovascular Business: Novo Nordisk spends $60M on advanced AI in search of new cardiovascular medications
  • Health Imaging: Radiologists deliver fewer false-positive results than advanced AI models
  • Radiology Business: AI-powered stroke triage software meaningfully reduces treatment times, randomized trial finds
  • Health Imaging: AI helps radiologists interpret noncontrast CT scans
  • Radiology Business: 15% of lung-resection surgeries are performed on benign nodules, with AI a potential remedy