Picture this: A diabetic patient at home has her diet and medication questions answered over the phone in a conversation with an AI healthcare agent. Another AI healthcare agent calls to check in with a patient after surgery, providing informational and empathetic reassurance. Yet, another AI healthcare agent motivates lifestyle improvements through a natural, conversational phone session, specifically tailored to a wellness plan determined by a physician.
These are scenarios that, even just a few years ago, would have sounded like pure science fiction and would today ideally take place but often don’t due to widespread healthcare staffing shortages. Now, powered by a safety-first, healthcare-specific generative AI model, they’re in the final stages of testing and will soon be augmenting human healthcare professionals to serve patients, says Munjal Shah, the co-founder and CEO of generative AI healthcare startup Hippocratic AI.
"With generative AI, we have the opportunity to address some of the healthcare industry's most pressing needs," he said. We can help mitigate widespread staffing shortages and increase access to high-quality care, all while improving patient outcomes."
Hippocratic AI has built large language models and partnered with Nvidia to develop advanced conversational AI for healthcare applications. The initiative marries Nvidia's cutting-edge computing power with Hippocratic's specialized LLMs trained on vast evidence-based medical data and feedback from human clinicians. The resulting "digital health agents" can engage in real-time voice conversations, providing patients with informed guidance across an array of low-risk, nondiagnostic tasks, and queries.
Hippocratic AI’s service offers a timely solution for an industry dealing with increased demands from an aging and increasingly chronically ill population, driving up costs while facing a severe shortage of nurses and other care providers. The World Health Organization estimates a projected global shortfall of 10 million healthcare workers by 2030. In the U.S. alone, the nursing workforce is projected to experience a 20% shortfall over the next two decades as baby boomers age and require more care.
Empathetic AI?
In benchmark tests by over 1,000 licensed nurses and physicians in the U.S., the company's AI healthcare agents were given high marks by testers measuring emotional resonance and feelings of empathy in responses to questions including "Did you feel this AI cared about you?" and "Do you feel comfortable confiding in this AI?"
"Voice-based digital agents powered by generative AI can usher in an age of abundance in healthcare, but only if the technology responds to patients as a human would," says Kimberly Powell, VP of healthcare at Nvidia. "This type of engagement requires continued innovation."
Powering a New Era of Healthcare Delivery
At Nvidia’s 2024 GTC conference in March, Munjal Shah explained that Hippocratic AI is partnering with the chipmaker to build highly specialized AI models optimized for real-time patient interactions. Nvidia's powerful chips and AI software stack, provide the computational muscle for low-latency speech recognition, text-to-speech, and inference critical for replicating the feel of natural human conversations.
“With generative AI, patient interactions can be seamless, personalized, and conversational — but in order to have the desired impact, the speed of inference has to be incredibly fast. With the latest advances in LLM inference, speech synthesis, and voice recognition software, “Nvidia’s technology stack is critical to achieving this speed and fluidity,” Shah said in a statement. “We’re working with Nvidia to continue refining our technology and amplifying the impact of our work of mitigating staffing shortages while enhancing access, equity, and patient outcomes.”
According to Hippocratic AI's research, every half-second of improved responsiveness boosts patients' sense of humanlike connection by 5% to 10%. Combining LLMs tailored for the medical domain with Nvidia's technology stack allows Hippocratic's agents to understand context and nuance while delivering nearly instantaneous and medically accurate responses.
Augmenting the Human Healthcare Workforce
Over 40 hospitals, insurers, digital health companies, and pharmaceutical makers are already beta-testing Hippocratic's AI for nondiagnostic tasks like chronic care management, preoperative screening, post-discharge follow-ups, and health risk assessments. By offloading these routine but vital workflows to virtual aids, human staff can focus on higher-skilled responsibilities while patients receive more continuous monitoring and support.
It's about augmenting the human workforce, not replacing it, said Munjal Shah. The goal is to free up nurses to spend more time on what humans do best: providing more nuanced, higher-risk clinical care that AI can't replicate.
Nurses, of course, do far more than simply answer medical queries. They provide urgent care, emotional support, patient education, and a wealth of other invaluable services face to face that AI agents will not replicate. But as an affordable, always available supplemental resource, Hippocratic's agents could increase care access while without further burdening already overworked medical staff.
But Shah understands the technology will only reach its full potential if it’s developed and deployed with proactive governance and focus on safety from day one.
“I wanted investors that would have the patience to prioritize safety over profits,” he said in an interview on “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast” when asked about the company’s $500 million valuation and a recent $53 million funding round led by General Catalyst and Premji Invest.
“We’re really serious about trying to make this safe. We named the company after the Hippocratic oath. We made the tagline ‘Do No Harm.’ But more importantly, we believe that the best way to make AI safe is to use the clinicians who we already trust to ensure it’s safe.”
About Hippocratic AI
Hippocratic AI's mission is to develop the first safest focused Large Language Model (LLM) for healthcare.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA invents the GPU and drives advances in AI, HPC, gaming, creative design, autonomous vehicles, and robotics.