Physicians know all too well—from countless hours spent with the EHR—the downsides of health care technology developed without doctors input early and often. But when physicians are key to the process from the start, they can help create technologies that will propel medicine into the future while improving patient care.
“We are attempting to transform health care from the inside out, the inside being the doctor-patient relationship,” said M. Christine Stock, MD, a managing director for Health2047, a Silicon Valley venture studio created by the AMA. Founded in 2016, Health2047 founds and funds early-stage health care startups with the goal of making a significant impact on the U.S. health system by the AMA’s 200th anniversary in 2047.
Dr. Stock recently discussed some of the exciting new technological developments being shepherded by Health2047.
She said that “most of the opportunities that we see are leveraging large language models and augmented intelligence.” Currently, their portfolio includes eight companies including ScholarRx’s digital learning platform for medical students and curriculum development for medical schools and HOPPR, which recently secured $31.5 million in Series A funding and has developed a foundational medical imaging platform driven by augmented intelligence (AI).
From AI implementation to EHR adoption and usability, the AMA is fighting to make technology work for physicians, ensuring that it is an asset to doctors—not a burden.
Fine-tuning obesity treatments
In the “AMA Update” episode, Dr. Stock mentioned as one example of an emerging technology Phenomix Sciences’ DNA test, called MyPhenome, which helps physicians determine obesity phenotypes and provides recommendations on the most effective treatments.
“Talk about workflow. Easy. Buccal smear in the doctor's office or at home by mail, the test goes to the lab, and the lab reports back not only the phenome for that particular patient but also a list of the probability with which each of the different types of therapy for obesity will work on that particular patient,” she said. “So, it's precision medicine for obesity.”
Phenomix Sciences is heading into Series A round funding, and Dr. Stock said the test, which is in use now, will help physicians make informed decisions about treatment and medications.
GLP-1s “only really work in about a third of the patients well, another third sort of OK, and then a third not at all,” she said. “So, you could do the test and then not prescribe it if it's not going to work.”
Dr. Stock said that the process of determining which startups are the right fit for Health2047 involves an intensive assessment on several fronts.
“The four things that we know from AMA research and our observations at Health2047 is that potential physician users want to know: Is it going to work? Is it going to goof up my workflow and my workplace? Am I going to get paid? And am I liable?” Dr. Stock said. “So, we take those questions—in addition to all of the business and marketing and the other things you think about when you think about a startup—very seriously.”
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How tech is integrated into health care
For Dr. Stock’s part, she said it can be helpful to organize new technologies into one of four buckets.
The first—the “least risky”—is “intelligent automation of administrative processes,” which would include scheduling, revenue cycle and prior authorization tasks. Next would be transcription services that use ambient AI and other documentation aids. The next category, Dr. Stock said, is her favorite: decision-support tools, which would include the Phenomix Sciences obesity DNA test. She said those technologies use “evidence-based information, data [and] probabilities” to help physicians make the best possible decisions for their patients.
The final bucket, which she called “high-risk,” are autonomous decision-making tools in which “the platform itself would make the diagnosis, would prescribe the drug, or would interpret the image.”
Dr. Stock went on to say that she hopes “the medical and technology communities will use their native intelligence to think hard about what should be used, in terms of autonomous decisions, in the practice of medicine.”
Learn more with the AMA about the emerging landscape of health care AI. Also, explore how to apply AI to transform health care with the “AMA ChangeMedEd® Artificial Intelligence in Health Care Series.”
