Stay up to date on the latest in health tech, digital health and health AI news with this weekly brief. This is news from the week of June 15 to 19.
ARPA-H launches program to redefine sleep as ‘measurable, controllable’ health driver
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) launched Tuesday a research funding opportunity to develop the “first closed-loop, in-home” technologies to objectively measure health-relevant sleep features.
The program, dubbed the Restorative & health Enhancing Sleep Time (REST) Program, will focus on two technical areas: measure and diagnose, as well as control and treat. It will be supported by a separate component dedicated to sleep-health modeling, data harmonization, benchmarking, cross-performer integration and independent verification and validation.
If the program is successful, officials say, it will provide “revolutionary insights” into sleep through its treatment as a controllable biological system. It aims to lift insomnia treatment response to at least 90% and create a path towards reducing poor sleep-associated health risks, including depression and cardiovascular disease.
“REST is designed around a simple but ambitious premise: we can more accurately measure sleep quality at home and correct it in real time,” said Nate Nohatt, Ph.D., REST Program manager, in a statement. “The future we’re building is one where Americans wake up better than they did the night before, every night, without ever stepping into a clinic.”
Lumeris adds symptom-checking capability within AI primary care platform
Value-based care company Lumeris announced Tuesday its primary-care-as-a-service solution “Tom” now offers a symptom-checking capability for patients in between medical visits.
The new capability, powered by Google's CX Agent Studio and Gemini, allows users to report symptoms, ask health-related questions and receive support through conversational interactions. It is currently in use with a “leading” Medicare Advantage plan serving high-risk members, the company says, with broader availability planned for later in 2026.
“One of the biggest challenges in caring for high-risk populations is making sure patients have access to the right support at the right time,” said David Carmouche, M.D., Lumeris chief medical and commercial officer, in a statement. “This capability further expands Tom's role as an active member of the care team, helping organizations identify patient needs earlier, streamline workflows and support more timely interventions.”
DeepIntent rolls out agentic AI platform for healthcare marketing
Healthcare demand-side platform DeepIntent launched Monday what it touts is the first agentic AI platform built for healthcare marketers.
The company says the solution—dubbed Helix AI—unlocks market insights within health datasets, which allows marketers to strategize and engage audiences with “unprecedented precision.”
DeepIntent CEO and Founder Chris Paquette said in a statement the speed of information delivery “has a significant impact on improving patient outcomes and quality of life.”
“Agentic AI presents us with the technology to finally democratize access to critical insights buried deep within varying types of health and media data,” Paquette said. “Helix AI shrinks both the time-to-insight and time-to-action from weeks to minutes, representing a major advance in how healthcare marketers can use AI and data to optimize the commercial success of their therapeutic products.”
Users can analyze both patient and healthcare provider audiences simultaneously and use the platform’s agentic tools and language to build relevant audiences. Helix AI is also able to optimize media performance and evaluate campaign outcomes.
UCLA launches AI implementation research center
UCLA Health launched a center aimed at evaluating AI safety and implementation across healthcare organizations.
The center, dubbed the Innovations and Outcomes Validation of AI (INOVAi) Center, will focus on evaluating the “full lifecycle” of AI—from early usability to implementation studies.
“INOVAi represents an important Center of Excellence in AI evaluation and implementation science, and an integral part of UCLA’s broader institutional approach to responsible health AI,” said Steven Dubinett, M.D., dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, in a statement. “In collaboration with the UCLA Center for AI & SMART Health and in alignment with Dr. Katherine Andriole’s role as associate dean for Health AI Strategy and Innovation, INOVAi will help strengthen a coordinated ecosystem for AI innovation that is rigorous, ethical, evidence-based and focused on improving health.”