Serial entrepreneur Munjal Shah has launched a new health tech startup called Hippocratic AI that seeks to leverage the power of large language models (LLMs) to enhance patient care and outcomes. LLMs like ChatGPT have recently demonstrated an aptitude for natural language generation, synthesis, and communication. Shah believes these capabilities can be harnessed to “super staff” the healthcare system and provide patients with AI-powered support comparable to having access to far more nurses and care coordinators than currently available.
The impetus for Hippocratic AI is the widening gap between patient needs and resource availability. With over 68 million Americans suffering from multiple chronic conditions but only a few hundred thousand chronic care nurses nationwide, there is a massive shortage of specialized care. Shah envisions using LLMs to create what he describes as “68 million nurses.” By supplementing the existing workforce with AI assistants, more patients could benefit from the level of personalized care required to manage complex, ongoing health issues properly.
Crucially, Hippocratic AI and its Munjal Shah-designed LLM will focus entirely on non-diagnostic applications. While optimistic about AI’s potential, Shah recognizes unsafe hallucinations as a limitation of current LLMs. Providing diagnosis and treatment recommendations risks patient harm if inaccurate. Therefore, the company’s LLM aims to assist with care coordination, patient education, reminders, diet planning, and administrative functions rather than medical decision-making.
To ensure safe and effective AI support, the Hippocratic AI LLM trains on domain-specific medical data under the supervision of human healthcare experts. Nurses provide ongoing feedback to enhance performance on key nursing responsibilities that the LLM seeks to replicate, such as chronic care management. This provides a pathway to automate repetitive, low-risk tasks, reducing burnout and allowing nurses to focus their specialized skills where needed.
As a serial entrepreneur behind successful AI startups acquired by Google and Alibaba, Munjal Shah brings technical prowess and business acumen to this healthcare moonshot. His vision for patient-centered AI care has gripped industry attention as generative language models display expanding competence. With prudent limitations and meticulous training, tools like the Hippocratic AI LLM can one day provide patients with their 24/7 virtual nurse. Munjal Shah remains focused on more immediate applications, but the future possibilities seem endless.
