Oz says ‘AI-based avatars’ can help rural communities. Some leaders disagree
The item is a STAT Morning Rounds newsletter roundup that leads with three AI-in-health-care developments, plus an aside that a high-level Anthropic official posted Tuesday evening that he believes there is a greater than 10% chance AI could kill all humans within the next decade.
On rural health, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Mehmet Oz and other Trump administration officials are touting 'AI-based avatars' and artificial intelligence as a game-changing force for rural health. But some rural hospitals are skeptical the tools will close funding gaps created by Republicans' Medicaid cuts, STAT's Daniel Payne reports in the Unraveled series. Rural providers have struggled for years and now face $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the coming decade.
AI could help in places such as sending prescription nudges or helping providers determine which patients need care and when. Rural health leaders worry, however, that investing in AI will only exacerbate existing inequalities between urban and rural communities. AI tools perform well with clear determinations drawn from large data sources, but more subjective calls—such as deciding which patients qualify for 'medical frailty' exemptions—could be harder. Daniel Payne talked with dozens of health officials and traveled to Maine and Louisiana for the story.
Separately, the roundup asks whether 'autonomous prescribing cardiologists' are coming to a clinic near you. ARPA-H, the government agency that funds cutting-edge health research, plans to commit $62.7 million to develop AI bots that direct treatment of heart failure. The program aims to produce AI devices that can assess symptom severity, prescribe drugs, and order lab tests.
Federal officials hope these AI agents will help many of the 6.7 million Americans with heart failure, who often struggle to get optimal treatment because of difficulty accessing specialists, especially in rural and underserved settings. It is the latest example of the Trump administration trying to use AI to solve health care problems. STAT's Mario Aguilar breaks down the new program, called ADVOCATE, and details the initial health tech companies and teams that received grants.
Finally, the roundup notes that it is not just U.S. health officials discussing how to use AI tools for medicine: a U.K. commission on Thursday unveiled recommendations for how the country should regulate artificial intelligence in medicine. The excerpt ends before providing the commission's specific recommendations.