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Together with
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“Balancing innovation in AI with privacy and safety will be one of the most difficult, and most defining, endeavors of modern medicine.”
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ECRI CEO Dr. Marcus Schabacker
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The House Bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence closed out the year with a bang, launching 273-pages of AI policy fireworks.
The report includes recommendations to “advance America’s leadership in AI innovation” across multiple industries, and the healthcare section definitely packed a punch.
The task force started by highlighting AI’s potential across a long list of use cases, which could have been the tracklist for healthcare’s greatest hits of 2024:
- Drug Development – 300+ drug applications contained AI components this year.
- Ambient AI – Burnout is bad. Patient time is good.
- Diagnostics – AI can help cut down on $100B in annual costs tied to diagnostic errors.
- Population Health – Population-level data can feed models to improve various programs.
While many expect the Trump administration’s “AI Czar” David Sacks to take a less-is-more approach to AI regulation, the task force urged Congress to consider guardrails in key areas:
- Data Availability, Utility, and Quality
- Privacy and Cybersecurity
- Interoperability
- Transparency
- Liability
Several recommendations were offered to ensure these guardrails are effective, although the task force didn’t go as far as to prescribe specific regulations.
- The report suggested that Congress establish clear liability standards given that they can affect clinical-decision making (the risk of penalties may change whether a provider relies on their judgment or defers to an algorithm).
- Another common theme was to maintain robust support for healthcare research related to AI, which included more NIH funding since it’s “critical to maintaining U.S. leadership.”
The capstone recommendation – which was naturally well-received by the industry – was to support appropriate AI payment mechanisms without stifling innovation.
- CMS calculates reimbursements by accounting for physician time, acuity of care, and practice expenses, yet fails to adequately reimburse AI for impacting those metrics.
- The task force said there won’t be a “one size fits all” policy, so appropriate payment mechanisms should recognize AI’s impact across multiple technologies and settings (Ex. many AI use cases may fit into existing benefit categories or facility fees).
The Takeaway
AI arrived faster than policy makers could keep up, and it’ll be up to the incoming White House to get AI past its Wild West regulatory era without hobbling the pioneers driving the progress. One way or another, that’s a sign that AI is starting a new chapter, and we’re excited to see where the story goes in 2025.
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Join the Nabla Team!
Nabla is scaling up, and it’s looking for a Head of Marketing to lead its next phase of growth. This role will help broaden Nabla’s footprint and showcase the proven impact of ambient AI with a company dedicated to bringing joy back to the practice of medicine. Learn more and apply here.
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A First Principles Approach to Responsible AI
Playback Health has over 15 years of experience breaking down complicated technology problems into basic elements then reassembling new solutions from the ground up, and just published a short-and-sweet guide to help others take a “first principles approach” to responsible AI.
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Top Systems Scale Primary Care With K Health
Leading health systems are turning to K Health’s AI-driven primary care solution to give their patients access to high-quality care with wait times measured in hours, not months. Find out why K Health is the only clinical AI company partnering with top systems to scale fully integrated primary care experiences.
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- Abridge Lands Johns Hopkins: Abridge put a cherry on top of 2024 by announcing that Johns Hopkins Medicine is rolling out the ambient AI platform across all of its care settings and specialties. With over 6,700 clinicians spanning 6 hospitals and 40 patient-care centers, Johns Hopkins is quite the high note to end on for Abridge’s already action-packed year.
- Medicare Fix Turmoil: A bipartisan Congressional deal that would have alleviated most of the pain from next year’s 2.8% cut to Medicare physician reimbursement appears to be collapsing. Lawmakers had reportedly agreed to include a 2.5% payment increase in an omnibus spending bill to keep the federal government running, but opposition from President-elect Donald Trump over several key details apparently torpedoed the legislation.
- Navina Teams Up With Agilon: Navina is teaming up with fellow VBC enabler Agilon Health to bring primary care physicians fresh insights at the point of care. By combining patient data from sources like the EHR, claims, and health information exchanges, Navina will help Agilon’s network of 2,800 PCPs paint a more comprehensive picture of their patients’ health and streamline their existing workflows with actionable insights.
- HHS AI Use Cases: HHS published its updated AI Use Case Inventory for 2024, which included 271 unique use cases – a 66% jump from 163 last year. It’s worth noting that only 104 of these AI use cases are in the “operation and maintenance” stage, while the rest are either still in development, actively being implemented, or among the 16 that have already been retired. Use cases ranged from the nascent HHSGPT to CMS’ new Medicare oversight tool that identifies outliers in claims and complaints data to determine if health plans are compliant.
- BPM Pro 2 FDA Clearance: Withings Health Solutions landed FDA clearance for BPM Pro 2, the first cellular blood pressure monitor to collect patient-reported outcomes and empower remote care programs to scale. BPM Pro 2 provides the unique ability to deliver health nudges precisely when patients are most engaged: as they’re taking a reading. If you haven’t checked out our hands-on demo at HLTH, it’ll give you the full rundown on all the exciting new features.
- Carta Acquires Realyze: Carta Healthcare is bolstering its data abstraction platform through the acquisition of Realyze Intelligence, which leverages AI to match patients with clinical trials to accelerate research and lower costs. Realyze’s oncology-focused solution analyzes EHR data to cut the time it takes to assemble appropriate cohorts from days to seconds, which combined with Carta’s platform will provide faster insights and reduce the labor needed for clinical data registry abstraction, research, and clinical quality performance programs.
- Hospital Margins Improve: Kaufman Hall’s latest National Flash Report showed that hospital performance steadily improved in October, helped along by continued increases in outpatient revenue and expense reductions on a volume-adjusted basis. Data from 1,300 hospitals showed a median operating margin of 6.5% for October (year-to-date stands at 4.4%), but Kaufman highlighted that “supplies and drug expenses continue to put pressure on hospitals, and cost containment should be a priority.”
- More Capital, Evidently: Evidently raised $15M in Series A funding to meet demand for its “AI resident” platform before expanding into population health and clinical research analytics. The Evidently platform allows providers to unlock insights from clinical data by serving as an AI resident that can synthesize information from disparate sources (including external health records and faxes) to deliver concise summaries and real-time decision support.
- Remote Monitoring For Heart Surgery: Using remote perioperative monitoring might lead to shorter postoperative stays and fewer readmissions for heart patients. Researchers compared 1,000 RPM patients who underwent bypass and valve surgeries to matched controls, finding that RPM patients experienced a 16.7% shorter median postoperative length of stay (1 day less) and a 33% relative reduction in 30-day readmission (7.0 vs. 4.7), while 5.6% more patients were discharged to home (97.8% vs. 92.2%).
- Tuva Takes Off: Armed with $5M in seed funding, Tuva Health emerged from stealth to become the world’s first open-source healthcare data transformation platform. Tuva offers payors, providers, and pharmaceutical companies the ability to transform claims and EHR data into analytics-ready tables via an open-source model with baked-in data normalization, quality testing, and enrichment. The open-source approach allows Tuva’s customers to continuously refine the model with their own improvements.
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Lift MA Plan Performance by Impacting SDoH
Social factors and non-medical issues strongly influence health outcomes, and addressing these contributing determinants of health can not only improve the lives of patients, but also enhance Medicare Advantage plan success. Learn how Clear Arch Health’s remote monitoring services are helping MA plans deliver cost-effective care while enabling more seniors to age independently.
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Tailored Support, When Patients Need It Most
With BPM Pro 2’s Personalized Health Nudges, care teams can send tailored messages – such as positive reinforcement, medication reminders, or appointment alerts – precisely when patients are most receptive.
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AI, Automation, and Data-Driven Innovation
Community Health Systems CMO Dr. Lynn Simon sees a future where AI moves healthcare from reactive treatment to proactive care. Catch Medallion’s Elevate discussion to see Dr. Simon’s predictions on what to expect, including stronger AI-human connections and a culture shift around powerful partnerships.
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