Becker's Hospital Review

18 INNOVATION Mayo study: AI, providers align on virtual primary care diagnoses By Giles Bruce A rtificial intelligence is on par with physicians for virtual primary care diagnoses, according to a new study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Digital Health. e researchers analyzed 102,059 virtual primary care visits between October 2022 and January 2023 in which patients started with an AI interview before being diagnosed by a physician or advanced practice provider. Providers agreed with an AI diagnosis in 84.2 percent of cases and the top-ranked AI diagnosis in 60.9 percent of them, according to the Sept. 20 study. Independent clinician adjudicators' diagnoses lined up with the AI as well. "is pioneering study marks the first comprehensive examination of AI's performance versus physicians in real-life cases as opposed to textbook vignettes," said lead author, Dan Zeltzer, PhD, a researcher at Israel's Tel Aviv University, in a Sept. 20 news release. "Beyond its high accuracy, this AI stands out for its absence of hallucinations, errors and impartiality across demographics." e AI and clinicians were also in more than 90 percent agreement on their differential diagnoses for 57 of the most common primary care conditions. e visits used the 24/7 virtual primary care platform from startup K Health, in which AI interviews patients for an average of five minutes and 25 questions, leading to an average of six positive symptoms and 2.5 potential diagnoses. Providers then review the interview summary, communicate with patients virtually and finalize a diagnosis and treatment plan. K Health has trained its AI on deidentified patient data from Mayo Clinic Platform, the data and digital health arm of the Rochester, Minn.-based health system. e AI learns from the data and clinical supervision, improving its predictive algorithms. n ChatGPT's developer gets into medical transcription By Giles Bruce C hatGPT developer OpenAI has rolled out a new medical transcription service with Hint Health, a digital health company focused on direct primary care. e generative artificial intelligence-based platform records and transcribes patient visits before generating a summary with OpenAI's large language models, which also power ChatGPT. Hint AI launched in beta mode Sept. 21 in the startup's clinical platform. "AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare in a way that enhances, rather than replaces, human relationships," said Aliisa Rosenthal, head of sales at OpenAI, in a Sept. 21 news release. "We are excited that Hint Health is using OpenAI's technology to bring advanced tools to doctors who share our vision." Hint Health provides technology for thousands of direct primary care clinics and networks across the country. Direct primary care providers offer subscription-based care directly to patients, sidestepping payers altogether. n Intermountain backs $31M funding round for digital healthcare company By Naomi Diaz I ntermountain Ventures, the venture capital arm of Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health, has backed a $31 million funding round for Vivante Health, a digestive health company. The new funding will go toward Vivante Health's technology upgrades aimed at predicting the onset and progression of GI conditions, according to a Sept. 20 news release from Vivante. The funding round brings the company's total capital to $47 million. n Mayo, Mercy team up on algorithms By Naomi Diaz R ochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and St. Louis-based Mercy are teaming up to design algorithms that can help diagnose a range of diseases, The Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 24. The health systems are analyzing patient data by removing any identifying information to detect patterns among millions of patient interactions, according to the publication. The aim of the partnership is to detect diseases at an earlier stage to determine the most effective treatment choices. n

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