Huh?
Artificial intelligence is what you’re familiar with: technology that’s designed to perform tasks autonomously (a.k.a on its own).
Augmented intelligence is technology that’s designed to work alongside us.
And it’s augmented intelligence that’s really changing healthcare right now – not artificial intelligence (at least, not yet).
AI has a very long way to go, especially when it comes to healthcare.
Why?
Healthcare is human-centric.
The one thing that machines will likely never be able to replicate is genuine human connection, which is the foundation of healthcare.
This is not an “anti-AI” rant by any means. AI has the potential to change every industry for the better.
However, the sci-fi stories of a superintelligence that exceeds the abilities of all human beings, is probably very far away.
Similarly, AI replacing providers, performing surgeries, and making diagnoses with no supervision isn’t realistic in the short-term (or maybe not any term for that matter).
But augmented intelligence? Technology that reduces administrative burden, assists with clinical decision-making, and improves the safety of procedures?
That’s very realistic – in fact, billions of dollars have already been poured into making this a reality (check out the “Where’s the proof?” section for more info on this).
So why should you care? And why now?
It’s understandable that “augmented intelligence” might just seem like the next fancy buzzword that you’ll forget about in a few years.
It’s also well-known that emerging technologies, which are designed to assist with clinical decision-making, are very case-specific. They’re not relevant to every speciality, let alone every healthcare business and professional.
However, the vast majority of augmented intelligence solutions, either in the market today or are coming soon, are designed to tackle issues in healthcare that affect all of us:
- Administrative Bloat
- Provider Burnout
- And all of the other non-clinical burdens that no one wants to deal with
Here are just a few examples:
- Documentation
- Managing Referrals
- Navigating Insurance Claims
- Coordinating Care Between Multiple Providers
- Interoperability
- Prior Authorizations
- Prescription Refills
- Coding and Billing
- Keeping up with regulatory changes
As a business owner, it’s safe to assume that at least one of the issues listed above costs you time and money.
This is why you should care about augmented intelligence sooner rather than later.
The earlier you start incorporating these solutions into your systems, the greater your ROI is going to be.
For practical ideas on how to do this, check out the “Action Steps” section of this post.
Where’s the proof?
Clinical Documentation
Each of these companies assists primarily with clinical documentation. They also help with improving workflows, and completely automating routine processes.
As for the money, in July of 2024, Commure signed a deal to acquire Augmedix at a $139,000,000 valuation.
Deepscribe’s latest funding round (Series A) back in 2022 pooled $30,000,000 from investors.
Since then, the company’s valuation has been estimated to be upwards of $150,000,000 according to DealRoom.
Nabla’s latest funding round (Series B) back in January of 2024 garnered an additional $24,000,000 to support their expansion. This was likely due to the partnership they secured with Permanente Medical Group.
Following the round, the company was said to be valued at $180,000,000.
Clinician Assistant
Suki is an enterprise-grade AI assistant that reduces administrative burden for clinicians. In addition to tackling clinical documentation, it’s also capable of recommending codes, generating notes ambiently, and answering questions.
Back in December of 2021, Suki raised an additional $55,000,000 in Series C funding. The same month, Bloomberg announced that the company was valued at $400,000,000.
Biological Data Management
Atomwise uses supercomputers to predict which potential medicines will and won’t work based on a database of molecular structures. Their mission is to make better medicines, faster.
In 2022, the company announced an agreement with Sanofi potentially exceeding $1,000,000,000 in milestone-based payments and tiered royalties.
In the same press release, AtomWise also stated that they had raised $194,000,000 from other investors.
Diagnostics
Butterfly Network manufactures portable ultrasound devices using semiconductor technology and artificial intelligence.
The company is a publicly traded unicorn backed by giants like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. You can dig into their 2nd quarterly report (2024) here if you’d like.
Ada Health is a diagnostic assistant that matches reported symptoms with those of patients of a similar age and gender. Using this information, it reports the statistical likelihood of a given condition.
The company claims that their technology saves clinicians time by giving them a more informed interaction with the patient.
Ada’s series B pooled $120,000,000 from investors in 2022.
Viz.Ai distributes Viz.Ai One, an image-based AI diagnostics platform to assist with clinical decision-making, among other products.
The company raised $100,000,000 from investors in 2022, and was recognized in Forbes AI 50 list in 2023.
Action Steps
Below are some ideas for how you can adopt augmented intelligence based on where you are in your business.
For Smaller Groups (<30 Providers)
- Use Pre-Visit Questionnaires
- Besides making your patient-interactions more informed, the information you collect can reveal valuable insights about who you serve.
- Whether you purchase from a software provider, build an excel template, or write actual code, you can analyze the data to better understand the needs of your patients.
- As a result, you’ll be able to cater your services to that population; this is essentially developing a niche that you can later expand from.
- Categorize Messages For Different Providers
- Some EHRs will give you the option to filter messages based on certain keywords.
- You can brain-dump and categorize these keywords to different levels of providers, and filter incoming messages accordingly.
- By doing this, you’re essentially triaging incoming messages, such that your MAs can answer some, your RN’s can answer others, and if necessary it can be escalated to a PA or a physician.
- Workflow Automation
- A number of EHRs allow you to design automated workflows specific to your organization.
- If not, there are plenty of no-code tools you can use like N8N, Zapier, Make, etc. It’s probably not the best idea to hire a custom developer shop until you’re at a larger size, so that the ROI is worth it.
For Medium-Sized Groups (30-100 Providers)
- Personalized, Automated Engagement Using AI
- There are plenty of software providers that allow you to do this, and at different levels (from SMBs to enterprise).
- Invest In Custom Development
- At this stage, your organization probably has numerous operational workflows that are very specific to you.
- It may now make sense for you to work with a software vendor to have them build solutions specifically for your business.
- Most agencies typically charge a development fee, an implementation fee, and a retainer for support and maintenance.
For Larger Groups (>100 Providers)
- Invest In Clinical Informaticists
- You almost certainly generate too much data to handle without professionals dedicated to doing just that.
- Clinical informaticists can sift through your clinical data to build models that allow you to both understand and predict care requirements.
- Additionally, they can analyze non-clinical data and inform decisions that contribute to your bottom-line.
- Even if their insights only yield incremental improvements across your organization, given your size the ROI would likely be worth it.
- SaMD’s
- Software as medical devices (SaMD’s) are still relatively new compared to traditional medical devices.
- However, their potential is MASSIVE, and AI (both augmented and artificial) are at the heart of such innovations.
- At your size you have the resources to partner with companies in this space, and maybe even develop these solutions yourself.
- If you decide to develop them on your own, you’ll obviously need more than an informaticist.
- In fact, you’ll likely need to build an entire team that includes executive leadership, physicians, software engineers, data scientists, lawyers, and more.
- Although SaMD’s are applicable to all specialities, they lend themselves particularly well to very data-driven specialities. These would include radiology, oncology, and cardiology (among others).
Please Keep This In Mind…
Please keep in mind that these categories of smaller, medium-sized, and large groups are completely arbitrary.
The information is based on extensive research and our industry involvement.
That’s all for this week.
See you next Saturday.
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