Sponsored by: Doximity
The Doximity Clinical AI Suite is built for every layer of a physician's day. Ask for physician-verified clinical answers. Let Scribe handle your documentation. Connect with patients through Dialer. All in one platform, trusted by more than 85% of U.S. physicians. Free, HIPAA-compliant.
👉 Ask us today at doximity.com.
Welcome back, everyone —
Here’s what we’re covering this week:
Nurses left behind in AI
FDA shakeup
An AI scribe for patients
15 new tools/partnerships, 9 funding updates, new AI jobs & link-worthy content
Read time: 5 minutes
Our Picks ✨
Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…
1/
Nurses left behind in AI
Two new reports are sending the same message: nurses are increasingly using AI, but many feel left out of the conversation shaping it.
Elsevier’s global Clinician of the Future survey, which included nearly 2,800 clinicians across 118 countries, found that only 41% of nurses regularly use AI tools compared to 57% of physicians. 41% of nurses also said their views are rarely or never reflected in AI decision making.
At the same time, a McKinsey survey of 500+ U.S. nurses showed momentum is building. Nearly 65% reported using more AI tools than a year ago, and more than 80% believe AI can improve patient care. Still, adoption remains shallow, with only about 2% saying AI is fully integrated into daily workflows.
Nurses are often the operational backbone of healthcare, and if AI is going to work in the real world, they can’t just be end users. They need to help shape the systems from the start. Even just this week the WSJ reported that nurse practitioner is the hottest job in healthcare, with employers increasingly relying on clinicians who can deliver doctor-like care faster and at lower cost. If AI is going to reshape care delivery, the benefits need to reach and be designed for the broader clinical workforce, especially given how these roles are rising in prominence. (tweet)
2/
FDA shakeup
The FDA turmoil continues. Commissioner Marty Makary is officially out after just 13 months, adding to a growing leadership vacuum across the agency’s drug, biologics, and vaccine divisions. His exit follows months of tension between the FDA’s traditional regulatory role and pressure from the “Make America Healthy Again” movement pushing for faster and more disruptive change.
Makary also oversaw major workforce cuts, with roughly 21% of FDA staff eliminated over the past year, contributing to low morale and concerns about instability. At the same time, industry groups and investors complained about increasingly unpredictable regulatory decisions.
One notable part of Makary’s tenure was a push toward modernization and AI adoption at the agency. Earlier this year, the FDA launched Elsa, a generative AI tool designed to help reviewers, investigators, and staff work more efficiently across regulatory processes.
Along with Makary, acting drug center chief Tracy Beth Høeg was also removed, marking the fifth leadership change at the FDA’s drug division during the current administration. The bigger issue now is trust and consistency at one of the world’s most important regulators and what the appetite will be for AI adoption. (link)
3/
An AI scribe for patients
AI notetakers have largely focused on helping doctors, but Kin Health is taking the opposite approach and building for patients instead. The startup, founded by two physicians alongside a former GoodRx executive, just raised $9M to build an AI powered app that records doctor visits, summarizes conversations, explains next steps, and helps patients organize their care across providers and systems.
The app is free and the company says it plans to keep it that way, monetizing through referrals to specialists and labs, similar to the GoodRx model. That connection runs deep, with GoodRx founders Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek also backing the company.
What’s interesting is how full circle this feels. Abridge originally started as a patient scribe years ago before pivoting toward clinicians. Maybe the market just wasn’t ready yet. Now, with OpenAI acquiring a related company, Torch, earlier this year and big AI labs pushing deeper into consumer health, the idea of AI shifting more power and context to patients suddenly feels much more timely. More power to the people! (link)(linkedin)
Tools & Partnerships 🔧
Latest on business, consumer, and clinical healthcare AI tools and partnerships…
TOOLS
Penn Medicine projects $105M ROI from AI: The health system says AI tools across imaging, documentation, and prior auth workflows are already delivering measurable operational value. (link)
OpenEvidence sees explosive physician adoption: The AI clinical search platform says it was used in nearly 27 million clinical encounters in April, with about 65% of U.S. physicians now actively using the tool for medical decision support. (link)
FDA clears first continuous AI sepsis monitor: Bayesian Health’s AI tool continuously monitors hospital patients to detect deterioration and flag sepsis earlier. (link)
OpenAI expands Codex for healthcare: Codex now supports HIPAA-compliant enterprise environments and mobile task management for healthcare workflows. (link)
Vanderbilt Health deploys patient-facing AI assistant: The health system rolled out an OpenAI-powered portal assistant that helps patients draft medical messages using Vanderbilt’s triage and care-routing protocols. (link)
Viz.ai debuts pulmonary care suite: New AI platform integrates pulmonary workflows, chart summarization, and guideline support to reduce missed diagnoses and delays. (link)
Payers increasingly prefer vendor AI tools: Nearly 80% of payer leaders surveyed said they favor vendor-built AI solutions over developing tools internally. (link)
Included Health launches AI provider matching: Provider Connect uses AI and clinical quality data to help members find high-quality in-network care. (link)
Medbridge introduces rehab “Care Intelligence Loop”: Medbridge Outcomes connects patient care, clinical performance, and reimbursement into a unified rehab workflow. (link)
Stanford surpasses 1M AI-generated notes: More than 1 million clinical notes have now been created using Microsoft’s Dragon Copilot ambient AI platform at Stanford Health Care. (link)
Mayo Clinic study links AI to shorter ED stays: An AI admission-risk model reduced emergency department length of stay by 12 minutes in a prospective study. (link)
Theris launches AI-augmented behavioral health platform: The startup combines provider care with AI tools for documentation, diagnostics, and treatment support, with early results showing strong diagnostic accuracy. (link)
Adaption launches AutoScientist: The new system automates model fine-tuning and dataset optimization, outperforming expert-tuned models in internal testing. (link)
Availity debuts agentic AI workflow layer: Availity Extend enables payors and providers to build AI-driven workflows across its large healthcare network infrastructure. (link)
PARTNERSHIPS
Doximity + Photon Health: Doximity partnered with Photon Health to launch Doximity Prescribe, integrating prescribing workflows and pharmacy selection directly into the clinician platform. (link)
Deal Desk 💰
Spotlight on latest capital raises, M&A, and investments…
FUNDING
Forus (fka Tandem), a provider of software for administrative management of prescriptions, raised $160M from Thrive Capital, General Catalyst, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Redpoint, BoxGroup, and Pear VC. (link)
Tokaido Health, a San Mateo, Calif.-based pharmacy navigation startup, raised $25M from Norwest, Primary Venture Partners, Next Ventures, Constellation, and Scrub Capital. (link)
Optura, a Franklin, Tenn.-based provider of AI ROI analysis for healthcare, raised $17.5M in Series A funding. Salesforce Ventures led, joined by Susa Ventures, Matrix Partners and HC9 Ventures. (link)
Anomaly Insights, an NYC-based provider of health care RCM tools, raised $17M. Sound Ventures led. joined by Alumni Ventures, Link Ventures, Redesign Health, and RRE Ventures. (link)
Develo, an LA-based AI-powered operating system for pediatrics, raised $14M in funding. Blueprint Equity led the round. (link)
Clara, an AI PCP + longevity platform, raised $12M from A.Captial and YC. (link)
Knit Health, a San Francisco-based health care-native intelligence company, raised $11.6M in seed funding from UncorkCapital, FristCresseyVentures, and others. (link)
Chromie Health, a NYC-based AI-powered scheduling and management platform for hospital operations, raised $2M in pre-seed funding. AIX Ventures led the round. (link)
GRANTS
Anthropic commits $200M to global health AI: The company is partnering with the Gates Foundation to support drug discovery, vaccine development, and better use of health data in low- and middle-income countries using Claude. (link)
as of 5/18/26
Other Relevant News 🔍
News, podcasts, blogs, tweets, resources, etc…
AI Job Opportunities 💼
Explore our AI Job Board or contact us to feature roles in our newsletter…
Visuals of the Week 📸
Funny memes, cool pics, and interesting data from around the web…
That’s it for this week friends! Back to reading — I’ll see you next week.
Stay classy,
PS. I write this newsletter for you. So if you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to reply to this email and let me know
How was this week's newsletter? Tap your choice below👇
