Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

• HHS’s inventory of AI use cases is soaring. The agency’s count, which reflects uses of the technology in various categories, spiked from 50 in fiscal 2022 to 163 this fiscal year (with September’s tally yet to come). The new-this-year instances include tools used by NIH to classify HIV-related grants and predict subcategories in stem-cell research applications. FedScoop has the scoop.
   
• Cedars-Sinai Health System is showcasing its embrace of healthcare AI. In the process the Los Angeles institution, a care site for many an entertainment icon over the years, lists examples of its early adoption of AI for clinical indications. These include pancreatic cancer, heart health, Alzheimer’s research and spine surgery. CIO Craig Kwiatkowski says the org is “only at the very beginning of understanding what AI can do to improve healthcare.”
   
• Morgan Stanley advises AI investors to watch four broad areas within healthcare for growth and thus good ROI. Three of the four may strike some as a little too airy to guide any serious strategizing—healthcare “services and technology,” life sciences “tools and diagnostics” and “medical technology.” Then again, the advice is free. The global investment bank and wealth-management firm offers it in an Aug. 16 post fleshing out a few details and tipping off readers to the availability of a fuller report. (The fourth growth area Morgan Stanley flags within healthcare AI? Biopharma.)
   
• Did you know 2023 is the 200th birth year of The Lancet? It’s true. Interesting to consider, then, what the founders of the venerable British journal would have made of an editorial posted by the current leadership Aug. 12. The subject is none other than AI in medicine. The hope is palpable. But so are the fears. The piece wastes little time before quoting United Nations Secretary General António Guterres’s July speech warning of the “horrific levels of death and destruction” that malicious use of AI could cause. The editors ask: “How can the medical community navigate AI’s substantial challenges to realize its health potential?” For their answer, read the piece.
   
• Milbotix (Oxfordshire, England) has been getting all kinds of positive press for its AI-powered socks. As well it should. The company worked with the University of Exeter to come up with a design that looks and feels like comfy crew-length hosiery but helps people with dementia live more independently. The socks pull this off by monitoring and relaying the patient’s heart rate, perspiration and worrisome movements. Fox News has backstory from the creator.
   
• Alaffia Health (New York) has launched a text-based AI chatbot that helps payers process claims. The system combines OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 with Alaffia’s own algorithms. As shown in an online demonstration, the assistant can summarize a lengthy medical record in seconds, answering specific questions posed by claims-management staff and other end users. Announcement. Demonstration.
   
• From Aiin.Healthcare’s news partners:
   
  • Radiology Business: Google Health, radiology vendor seek regulatory approval of AI as independent mammography reader
  • Cardiovascular Business: 2 key reasons the use of AI in echocardiography is growing