During the Covid-19 pandemic, telehealth was all the rage. And in the years since, artificial intelligence (AI) has set the healthcare world on fire.
In fact, market research and consulting company Grand View Research reported that AI in healthcare was a $19.3 billion industry in 2023. But by 2030, the consultancy expects that figure to reach $187.7 billion.
In a partnership announced on October 22, videoconferencing software company Zoom and ambient listening AI company Suki are looking to join forces. During medical appointments using Zoom, Punit Soni, founder and CEO of Suki, said Suki’s ambient listening tech can take notes for clinicians to review after appointments once clinicians get patient consent and click it on. It also works during in-person appointments as well, he said, improving continuity of care.
Notes can encompass the purpose of the visit, the clinician’s assessment, the diagnosis, and applicable billing codes, according to Soni.
Right hand man AI assistant. Suki, which is based in California and was founded in 2016, differs from its competitors by working as more of an AI assistant than a note taker. It can identify medical codes for billing based on an appointment and can answer questions from clinicians about the patient’s medical history.
The program works in person as well as via telehealth since it can be integrated on phones and desktop with major electronic health record (EHR) platforms like Epic, Oracle Cerner, Meditech, and Athenahealth.
To keep sensitive health info safe, the company encrypts the data and stores it in a cloud that is secure, then permanently deletes the recordings when they are no longer in use, according to Soni.
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“Our mission [at Suki] is to make healthcare tech assistive and invisible so that clinicians can focus on clinical care,” Soni told Healthcare Brew, adding that “healthcare tech assistive and invisibility using AI cannot actually be true unless you have a strategy on telehealth.”
The news of this partnership comes on the tail of Suki closing a $70 million Series D round on October 10, which brought total funding to $165 million. According to its website, Zoom works with eight of the 10 biggest health systems in the US.
AI-nto healthcare. Ambient listening programs aren’t new to healthcare. The tech has been developed to reduce clinician documentation burden, which 62% of healthcare providers report as a leading cause of burnout, according to a June survey from Athenahealth, a health tech and EHR company.
But adoption of the technology is still in early stages across the country. For example, AI assistant technology company Nabla launched its program at University of Iowa Health Care earlier this month. And just this week, in the payer space, Blue Shield California announced a partnership with cloud-based software company Salesforce to automate prior authorization requests.
In May, the Medical Group Management Association, made up of professionals who lead medical practices, also reported that, of 424 respondents to a weekly poll, just 28% of leaders said their medical group uses ambient AI to draft notes.
“This pre-AI and post-AI world, it’s not too dissimilar from the pre-internet and post-internet world,” Soni said. “All of healthcare tech is going to fundamentally change.”