UnityAI, a Nashville-based healthcare technology startup, secured $4 million in seed capital to scale up its care orchestration technology that's designed to improve patient flow in a hospital setting.
UnityAI uses reinforcement learning AI and classical optimization to create timely content and then communicates that content ergonomically into hospital workflow. Essentially, that means using constantly improving AI-generated content to help communicate with healthcare workers and aid them in their decision-making, in turn helping patients, Edmund Jackson, CEO, told Fierce Healthcare.
“It is helping those who take actions to get to the set of next-best actions,” he said. “The hospital environment is hard and so we are trying to create something that is smooth and ergonomic, low friction, to make care better and improve the patient experience.”
Healthcare workers will also benefit from such technology, enabling them to make more patient-centered decisions and improve their workplace life at the same time, Jackson said.
“In hospitals, babies are born every day, people die every day, people come back to life every day – heroes work there every day,” he said. “It is profoundly difficult to work there and we are very passionate about improving that.”
The company, formed by three former HCA Healthcare engineers and data scientist executives, is beginning to work with Nashville-based healthcare systems and hospitals to use its AI-driven technology but has ambitions well beyond the city.
“Nashville is the epicenter for hospital operations and we are talking to people here,” Jackson said. “There has been an outstanding reception so far, and we are not going to limit ourselves to just here in the future.”
Healthcare is also ripe for such technology improvements because the availability of data is now more widespread than even just a few years ago, Jackson added. AI-centered solutions such as UnityAI offers can also help because it is difficult to lure AI experts away from what he called “Big Tech” workplaces so that they could instead work in a healthcare environment.
“The ecosystem is growing and we are going to see it flourishing,” he said.
The $4 million funding round is being led by New York City-based Max Ventures. Nashville-based private equity group Whistler Partners led the pre-seed round and remains the largest investor in UnityAI.
"We’re deeply impressed with what the UnityAI team has already accomplished and can’t wait to see what their team does with this next round of capital,” said Geoff Clark, managing partner at Whistler Capital. “Nashville is a hugely strategic market for Whistler Capital Partners, and we’re excited that our investment is so closely aligned with the economy and healthcare community here.”
The seed funding news comes at the same time as an athenahealth survey of physicians showed widespread support for AI-generated solutions if they can help focus things back on the patient.
Based on the survey of 1,000 physicians, 83% said AI could eventually reduce the problems facing healthcare if it focuses on reducing administrative burdens and increasing efficiencies. The more enthusiastic supporters of AI solutions tended to be younger male physicians, the survey showed.