The Future of Healthcare: Where AI Nurses Cost Less Than Your Netflix Subscription

3/22/24

Editorial team at Bits with Brains

NVIDIA and Hippocratic AI will shortly be offering a cost-effective and efficient alternative to human nurses in addressing the healthcare worker shortage and improving patient care.

Hippocratic AI, a healthcare-focused artificial intelligence startup, has recently achieved a significant milestone by reaching a valuation of $500 million. This valuation comes after the company successfully secured $53 million in Series A funding. The funding round was led by prominent investors General Catalyst and Premji Invest, with additional participation from a range of healthcare and technology-focused investors.

The company, based in Palo Alto, is known for its development of a safety-focused large language model (LLM) for healthcare. This model aims to assist healthcare systems by providing AI-powered solutions for non-diagnostic, patient-facing tasks, thereby addressing critical shortages in healthcare professionals such as nurses, social workers, and nutritionists.

Hippocratic has an ongoing collaboration with NVIDIA to develop AI-powered healthcare agents, also referred to as AI nurses or agents. These AI agents are designed to perform various healthcare-related tasks and reportedly outperform human nurses in several aspects, including efficiency and cost. The significant highlight of this collaboration is the operational cost of these AI agents, which is stated to be $9 an hour.

Further, the collaboration emphasizes the potential of voice-based digital agents powered by generative AI to revolutionize healthcare by providing human-like responses to patients. The AI agents have been tested by more than 1,000 registered nurses and 100 licensed physicians in the U.S., demonstrating superior performance in various metrics compared to human nurses and other AI technologies like OpenAI's GPT-4 and LLaMA 2 70B Chat.

The recent funding will support Hippocratic AI's phase three safety testing and further product development, emphasizing the company's commitment to prioritizing safety in AI applications within healthcare. The company has established a nurse advisory council to ensure the safe development of its software and has engaged in rigorous multi-phase testing processes.

The company's rapid growth and the successful funding round highlight the potential of generative AI solutions to transform healthcare by improving accessibility, reducing costs, and addressing workforce shortages.

Sources:

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/116a7ab1-ab9a-45e7-88a3-976365468549

[2] https://www.upmarket.co/private-markets/pre-ipo/hippocratic-ai/

[3] https://www.hippocraticai.com/press

[4] https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/16/hippocratic-is-building-a-large-language-model-for-healthcare/

[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-16/andreessen-general-catalyst-back-health-startup-hippocratic-ai

[6] https://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/134568775/medicines-rising-costs-put-hippocratic-oath-at-risk

[7] https://www.hippocraticai.com

[8] https://www.ec.co/news/hippocratic-ai-revolutionizing-healthcare-with-generative-ai/

[9] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hippocratic-ai-raises-53-million-220500479.html

[10] https://hitconsultant.net/2024/03/18/hippocratic-ai-secures-53m-to-develop-safety-focused-genai-for-healthcare/

[11] https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2024/03/28/ai-nurses