Ambience secures $70 million in funding from Optum, OpenAI Startup Fund
The company said it plans to use the funding to help expedite its product roadmap and advance AI foundation models for medicine.
Photo: Laurence Dutton/Getty Images
Artificial intelligence technology specialist Ambience Healthcare, which specializes in AI-powered applications and an operating system to improve system efficiency for organizations, announced a $70 million funding round.
The Series B round was led by Kleiner Perkins and OpenAI Startup Fund, as well as existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Optum Ventures.
The company said it plans to use the funding to help expedite its product roadmap, establish specialized teams for health system partners and advance AI foundation models for medicine.
Ambience's products help facilitate documentation workflows, encompassing suspecting, critical-care documentation and consultations with paramedics and specialists.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT?
Key technical features include the ability to manage multiple speakers and languages, continued operation in intermittent WiFi conditions, seamless interleaving between concurrent visits, and extracting structured data from conversations.
The Ambience AI operating system offers a suite of applications aimed at reducing clinician burnout, enhancing system efficiency and facilitating high-quality care.
These include AutoScribe, a real-time AI medical scribe for generating comprehensive notes, and AutoCDI, a point-of-care CDI assistant ensuring code accuracy and audit trails for revenue cycle teams.
Additional applications include AutoRefer, which streamlines specialist referrals, and AutoAVS, which produces customized patient handouts in multiple languages. An upcoming application is AutoPrep, which when released will provide intelligent pre-charting and visit-agenda suggestions.
The operating system is also designed to help improve collaboration and efficiency by integrating clinical documentation and coding and billing processes, eliminating silos, and ensuring a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of each patient visit.
The company has deployed its operating system for healthcare organizations including UCSF and Memorial Hermann Health System and offers integration with EMRs including Epic, Cerner and Athenahealth.
THE LARGER TREND
The applications of generative AI can ease administrative burden and inform patients. The coming wave of automation could help save healthcare organizations between $30 billion and $40 billion.
While the growing presence of AI in healthcare brings multiple potential advantages to physicians, patients and providers, post-deployment monitoring of health and the real-world impact of these AI products are frequently neglected.
Some healthcare professionals are concerned that Insufficient monitoring of AI products poses risks to patients and operations.
ON THE RECORD
"Healthcare is one of AI's most promising opportunities to create an outsized positive impact on the world," Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI and manager of the OpenAI Startup Fund, said in a statement. "Ambience Healthcare has built an incredible team to focus on providing a complete ecosystem of products that seamlessly fit into the workflow of practitioners, pushing both AI and medicine forward."
