In the post-COVID-19 era, one of the most pressing challenges facing global healthcare systems is the shortage of healthcare professionals. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Health, by 2023, 16.7% of hospitals have reported severe staffing shortages. To tackle this challenge, generative AI technology is gradually emerging as a solution. It not only improves the efficiency of healthcare workers and reduces their workload but also assists in medical decision-making, thereby enhancing overall healthcare quality and improving patient care experiences.

Over the past year, terms like large language models (LLMs) and generative AI have swept across various industries, and their applications in the biomedical field have attracted significant attention from domestic and international biotech and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and investors.

In the realm of clinical assistants and decision support, tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and AWS have initiated collaborations with healthcare providers and medical technology companies. Numerous international startups are also leveraging generative AI to streamline clinical workflows. Below are seven startups focused on AI-driven clinical applications:

Hippocratic AI | Emerging Unicorn (Valuation: $500 Million)

Founded in 2023, Hippocratic AI secured investments from notable international venture capital groups such as General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz in just one year. The company primarily develops large language models tailored for healthcare and focuses on non-diagnostic, patient-support applications. These applications enable AI to handle low-risk, patient-facing tasks, such as providing nutritional consultations and automating patient inquiries about medical bills. The company is gradually building an AI "Copilot" to assist hospitals and clinics.

The capabilities of this Copilot technology have already been validated. Hippocratic AI was benchmarked against GPT-4 across 114 different criteria, including exams and certifications for doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, audiologists, and medical coders. Hippocratic AI outperformed GPT-4 in 105 evaluation items, tying in six others.

According to subjective evaluations, study participants rated the AI's performance as comparable to that of a practicing nurse in the U.S. In terms of objective measures like medical accuracy and safety, it significantly outperformed GPT-4 and other general-purpose LLMs.

Ambience Healthcare (Valuation: $2.6 Billion)

Ambience Healthcare has developed a generative AI platform focused on automating medical records through natural language processing (NLP) technology. The platform helps healthcare professionals reduce paperwork, allowing them to spend more time on patient care. Its technology can translate and organize medical records in real-time, improving workflow efficiency in clinics and hospitals. The platform has reduced medical documentation time by 83%, saving five to six hours per week for healthcare providers. Currently, it supports medical records and documentation for 23 medical specialties and seamlessly integrates structured data into electronic health record (EHR) workflows.

DeepScribe (Valuation: $200 to $180 Million)

DeepScribe has developed an AI-driven medical record tool that utilizes speech recognition and NLP technology to automatically document conversations between doctors and patients. This technology primarily reduces the administrative burden on physicians while improving the accuracy and efficiency of consultations. In terms of clinical accuracy for generating medical records, DeepScribe's AI exceeds GPT-4 by 32%. Its AI-powered medical transcription platform automatically generates clinical notes for physicians, capturing and transcribing natural clinical conversations in real-time and extracting relevant medical information, which is then classified into complete medical records.

Iodine Software | Unicorn Since 2021 (Valuation: Over $1 Billion)

Iodine Software provides AI solutions for clinical documentation improvement (CDI). The platform uses machine learning to analyze EHRs, ensuring the completeness and compliance of clinical documentation. This helps healthcare institutions optimize the quality and accuracy of their records. In June last year, the company partnered with OpenAI, integrating generative AI technology and large language models (including GPT-4) into its platform. To date, the platform is used by over 900 healthcare systems and more than 80,000 physicians.

Wisedocs (Valuation: Not Disclosed)

Wisedocs developed an AI platform for automating medical record processing. The platform quickly classifies, compiles, and reviews unstructured medical documents, such as PDFs, JPEG images, and faxes. Its AI model uses intelligent character recognition to analyze large volumes of medical documents and can summarize thousands of pages quickly. For insurance claims, it supports fast search, indexing, keyword extraction, and summary generation, helping legal and insurance companies reduce case processing times and improve efficiency.

Layer Health (Valuation: Not Disclosed)

Layer Health offers a digital health platform that utilizes AI and telemedicine to provide personalized health management services. The platform leverages data-driven insights and automated health recommendations to help users improve their health and prevent disease.

Layer continues to integrate other generative AI models, using its "Distill" feature to organize disorganized medical data and more efficiently complete administrative tasks. In November last year, the company successfully secured investments from well-known venture capital groups, including GV (Google Ventures) and General Catalyst.

Pieces Technologies (Valuation: Not Disclosed)

Pieces Technologies is a healthcare startup that provides generative AI solutions for care teams. Its technology integrates various data sources to help healthcare institutions identify high-risk patients and provide personalized interventions, improving health outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.

The AI platform developed by Pieces focuses on community health and care coordination. It has also integrated with Amazon Web Services (AWS), allowing for customization according to system specifications and embedding AI into electronic health records and clinical workflows.

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