Companies Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Solve Real-World Healthcare Challenges

Since IBM Watson handily beat Jeopardy’s reigning human champions back in 2011, artificial intelligence has been making headlines and enticing us with its prospects. Healthcare has always been an intriguing sector for AI, with seemingly infinite applications, ranging from administrative to clinical.

Like other disruptive technologies in healthcare, the AI hype cycle has seen peaks and valleys. We celebrated the early days of Watson Health in 2015, and by 2022 the healthcare world watched closely as IBM effectively sold the business unit off for parts. This led many to ask if healthcare was really ready for AI or vice versa. If a tech behemoth like IBM couldn’t pull it off, was it even viable?

After a few “down” years, the hype cycle is once again in full swing with Generative AI and ChatGPT – and for good reason. Recent advancements show enormous potential across the continuum of care, including but not limited to payers, providers, pharma, biotech, device, and even consumer health and wellness. The key to success this time will be focusing on practical problems we can solve today, and fortunately/unfortunately there are plenty to choose from.

With AI in healthcare, the real magic happens when we reduce administrative burden and empower humans around their core competency, whether that’s care delivery or research and development or anything in between. In that spirit, here is a by no means exhaustive list of companies we are keeping an eye on that are advancing practical applications of AI to move medicine forward today:

PathAI works with leading life sciences companies, laboratories, and researchers to advance precision medicine and more quickly bring groundbreaking therapies to market. The company leverages data from more than 15 million annotations provided by a proprietary, crowd-sourced network of over 450 pathologists, and a vast library of archived data to train and validate its AI-based models. The platform helps pathologists accelerate drug development, improve the accuracy of diagnosis, and get life-saving therapies to patients more efficiently.

IntelyCare’s AI-powered staffing platform helps healthcare organizations address nurse staffing issues by combating both ongoing labor shortages and the epidemic of clinician burnout. It uses advanced pricing and shift matching algorithms to find the right nurse, for the right shift, in the right facility. A platform with a three-fold mission, IntelyCare empowers nurses looking for work, facilities looking for nurses, and of course the patients in their care.

Tempus’ AI-enabled precision medicine solutions help physicians deliver highly personalized care while also facilitating the discovery, development and delivery of optimal therapeutics for other patients down the road. This means that as both the company and physicians gather more data, new patients benefit from the treatment of those who came before.

Nayya uses artificial intelligence and data science to simplify benefits enrollment, guide employee decision making, and save billions of dollars in wasted benefit dollars. Its platform helps consumers better understand their options during open enrollment, so they select benefits they’ll actually use, resulting in increasing engagement and utilization. According to the company, users save an average of $1,200 per year.

CodaMetrix provides an AI-powered platform for healthcare revenue cycle management and medical coding. The cutting-edge platform combines machine learning (ML), deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP) to translate clinical notes automatically, accurately, and autonomously into billing and diagnostic codes that satisfy necessary requirements while reducing human workload and potential errors. CodaMetrix’s AI also continuously learns from the clinical evidence in electronic health records (EHRs) and uses that information to improve the efficiency and quality of medical coding – empowering providers to code less and care more.

Kaia Health is one of the world’s largest digital therapeutics companies, partnering with health plans, employers, and providers, covering nearly 80 million people globally. Its evidence-based treatments, covering a range of conditions including MSK and COPD, are powered by proprietary AI, motion analysis technology, and clinical expertise. Kaia has demonstrated effectiveness and safety across eleven clinical trials on par with traditional care, with as much as 80% reduction in cost.

Valeos is a non-profit dedicated to improving the U.S. organ transplantation system. It was founded by Tristian Mace, a serial tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and heart transplant recipient, and his wife Jordan Mace. Partnering with Oracle/Cerner, the organization uses AI and robust data-sets to improve equity, access, and transparency across the U.S. organ transplant system.

MWW Health is privileged to partner with organizations like IntelyCare and Valeos, giving us a front row seat to the transformational impact AI can have – and increasingly will have – in healthcare. Through our portfolio of client partners and personal networks, we are also fortunate to interact regularly with people and companies pioneering AI innovation and use cases across healthcare. While thinking about long-term applications and breakthroughs is important, these organizations’ success is proof that huge improvements can be made today by reducing administrative burdens and or augmenting human intelligence.

Stay tuned, and the MWW Health team will continue reporting on the people and brands innovating to move medicine forward!