UpDoc to develop conversational, assistant-directed AI providers

All care delivered through UpDoc’s artificial intelligence-based remote patient providers would be prescribed by physicians or clinical pharmacists who oversee the platform, the company said in an announcement on Friday.

WHY IT MATTERS

UpDoc’s remote patient intervention technology leverages conversational AI powered by multiplelarge language models, including GPT-4 through Microsoft’s Azure Open AI Service, Google Cloud’s MedLM and Vertex AI models.

Validated at Stanford Medicine, the physician-supervised AI autonomously manages chronic diseases, according to Palo Alto, California-based UpDoc. The company said patient-facing conversational AI can augment physician encounters and could improve access to high quality, affordable care as well as improve patient outcomes.

Over an eight-week trial of the company’s RPI platform, 81% of patients who had their diabetes managed by the AI achieved glycemic control of their diabetes compared to 25% of patients who received traditional care, according to the new partnerships announcement.

The AI-managed patients in the study had 60% greater medication adherence and five times more prescription changes, but required fewer doctor’s visits to get their diabetes under control, UpDoc said. 

“Medication management is one of the most significant issues in chronic care, especially in communities that have limited access to care providers,” Desi Kotis, chief pharmacy executive at UCSF Health said in a statement.

UpDoc is collaborating with UCSF Health and the American Heart Association as a member of AHA’s Innovator’s Network.

“We are eager to see what opportunities AI can offer in helping patients make sense of their medications and better manage their health.”

Further research with Microsoft, Google Cloud and Santa Clara County Independent Physician Association will also be conducted at Stanford Medicine.

Dr. Sharif Vakili, UpDoc CEO, a practicing primary care physician at Stanford Medicine and entrepreneur advisor at Polaris Partners, and Ashwin Nayak, the company’s income chief technical officer, a clinical informatician at Standford, AI researcher and software developer invented the technology.

Polaris Partners, Eli Lilly & Company, Mayo Clinic and Oxeon participated in the company’s recent funding round.

THE LARGER TREND

“Everybody knows evidence based medicine, but have you thought of intelligence based medicine?” Dr. Harvey Castro, a practicing ER physician, chief clinical operating officer at ViTel Health and assistant professor at University of Texas-Austin asked at the HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum last month. 

“With AI, we’re able to augment and we’re able to see things,” the AI and healthcare author and host of GPT Podcast said.

Stanford Healthcare has also used machine learning models to coordinate in-patient care and reduce clinical deterioration events. An AI-integrated system can objectively assess hospitalized patient risks and update predictions every 15 minutes in electronic health records.

Dr. Shreya Shah, a practicing academic internist, board certified practitioner in clinical informatics and expert in AI healthcare integration at the health system presented how the model works at the HIMSS AI forum.

She explained the site-specific validation used to ensure the ML model’s effectiveness in predicting clinical deterioration events, like unplanned ICU transfers, within a six- to 18-hour window. 

“Qualitative evaluation results identified that the model was useful in aligning mental models and driving the necessary workflows for patients flagged by the model with consensus across multidisciplinary team members,” she told Healthcare IT News ahead of the forum. 

The continuously updated risk signal helps physicians and care teams align. 

“This workflow led to significant increases in multidisciplinary standardized patient assessments and a resulting 20% reduction in clinical deterioration events,” she said.

ON THE RECORD

“Microsoft’s advancements in AI, world-class research and our expertise in empowering solutions for the healthcare industry with our Azure cloud will give UpDoc the platform they need to help clinicians manage patient care with a technology enabled solution that ultimately fosters better health outcomes at lower costs,” Peter Durlach, corporate vice president and chief strategy officer of Microsoft Health & Life Sciences, said in a statement.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News. Email: afox@himss.org Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.