🚨 Pulse of Innovation 🚨

Breaking news in the healthcare AI

Are Dolls (Robots) going to be digital pals to help tackle loneliness and depression in older adults?

• The $1,800 robot doll by Hyodal is an AI companion built on ChatGPT that can hold entire conversations to tackle loneliness, remind users to take medication, and monitor vital signs and falls. According to the company, in 9000+ users, they found that depression levels were reduced, and medicine intake improved.

• We have to agree; it feels a little dystopian! There are many concerns before something like this is implemented on a larger scale. Privacy concerns should be the front and central, along with understanding its long-term efficacy and utility. We are not sure if our community is ready to replace human connection with AI completely, maybe in the future🙂 

🧑🏼‍🔬 Bench to Bedside👨🏽‍🔬

Developments in healthcare AI research and innovations

AI-human expert collaborative to simplify language of patient consent

• Language of the surgical consent is often cumbersome and require clinical and legal details that make it difficult to follow for an average American. To address this a GPT-4 and human expert collaboration was done to improve the readability of consent without compromising clinical and legal details.

• This study shows that an AI-human expert collaborative improved the readability of surgical consent form and brought it to the level matching the average American’s reading level. This could be applied to other such documents in real-world clinical practice to mitigate literacy gaps.

👩‍⚕️AI in the Clinic 🏥

Real-world and practical use of healthcare AI in clinic

How AI-powered handheld devices are boosting disease diagnostics - from cancer to dermatology

• DermaSensor offers a significant advancement in early skin cancer detection by primary care physicians, boasting high sensitivity in identifying high-risk lesions and reducing the need for unnecessary specialist referrals. This handheld AI-assisted device, now available to use in clinics in the US, uses elastic scattering spectroscopy and is capable of evaluating skin lesions across all skin colors, potentially democratizing access to dermatological care.

• Despite its promising capabilities, the FDA advises that DermaSensor should be used as an adjunct to, not a replacement for, traditional clinical assessment by physicians. It's not approved as a screening tool for general skin cancer detection and requires further post-market clinical validation to ensure its effectiveness across diverse patient populations, including those underrepresented in premarket studies. The studies conducted by the company included 97% caucasian patients, which is undoubtedly a huge limitation in the real world.

🩺 Start-Up Stethoscope 💵 

Trending startups and technologies impacting clinical practice

AI powered device for providers to improve value based patientcare: Innovaccer

• Innovaccer has built a healthcare AI ecosystem providing several tools such as CRM, risk management, data visualization, other administrative tools including market intelligence, network optimizer etc.

• Innovaccer has unveiled a new AI powered companion device for providers that enables real-time data visualization, access to critical patient information, and AI-generated diagnosis suggestions based on symptoms and medical history. These features substantially reduce provider documentation burden and enhance value based patient care.

🤖Patients First, AI Second🤖

Ethical and regulatory landscape of healthcare AI

European Union AI Act - What do we as clinicians need to know?

• European AI Act is finally here. One of the most critical pieces of information the act provides is clear guidelines on what the new AI tool needs to do. - AI Act Compliance Checker. We have seen many different AI acts, but this is the first time we have seen some concrete examples of seeing if the AI tool complies with rules.

• EU AI Act will take 2-3 years to act. Hence it will be enforced by 2026. It is anticipated that 5-15% of AI applications will be subject to stricter rules, and companies not following will have financial penalties of up to 40 million euros.