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 Aug. 3 to 7.
Hims & Hers rolls out new Hers app with AI-native care experience
The app offers both doctor-led and AI-native care, and weight loss members at Hers will have access to the platform first.
As part of this new interconnected offering, Hims & Hers has introduced the Hers smart scale, which syncs an individual’s weight and GLP-1 progress data. It enables their provider, Care Team and AI to access this information at any time, as part of Hers support network, the company said.
Hers’ built-in AI tool intends to bridge the after-hours gap in care by offering personalized support and direct access to providers. In the future, this tool will be expanded to the Hims app and other categories. If a customer chooses to opt-in to this new service, the platform stores information about her goals and medications. Because AI responses are shaped by clinical protocols developed with weight-loss specialists, not generic health content, this new experience is expert-led and personal, rather than one-size-fits-all, the company said.
"Most AI in health sits outside your care. It can tell you things, but it isn't connected to your doctor, your treatment, or your plan, so the moment you need actual care, you're on your own," said Mo Elshenawy, Chief Technology Officer at Hims & Hers, in a statement. "This new experience on the Hers app embeds intelligence at every step of the care experience.”
"Women finally get an intelligent care experience built entirely around them, one that knows them, stays with them, and brings their provider and care team together with AI to truly serve their needs. In weight loss especially, the clinical oversight, lifestyle guidance, and support a woman receives between appointments can matter just as much as the treatment itself. This is what care for women should have always looked like," Hers Chief Medical Officer Jessica Shepherd, M.D. said in a statement.
Health Universe taps Atropos Health for real-world evidence in clinical workflows
Health Universe inked a partnership with real-world evidence company Atropos Health to embed patient-specific clinical decision support tools into its AI platform. Health Universe is an enterprise AI infrastructure and workflow orchestration platform for healthcare.
Through the partnership, healthcare organizations using Health Universe will gain seamless access to Atropos Health's clinical decision support capabilities directly within the platform, the companies said.
Healthcare organizations are managing an unprecedented volume of clinical guidelines, research, and patient data, making it increasingly difficult for clinicians to keep pace with the latest evidence at the point of care, the companies said. Many clinicians are turning to consumer AI tools outside their health system's oversight to quickly find answers. This shadow AI leaves healthcare organizations with little visibility into how recommendations are generated or whether they are based on evidence.
The partnership between Health Universe and Atropos Health gives clinicians access to relevant guidelines, publications and patient-specific insights within their existing workflows, while providing health systems with the governance and transparency needed to deploy AI safely, according to the companies.
"As clinicians face an overwhelming volume of clinical information, they need trusted infrastructure that delivers transparent, evidence-based insights within their workflows. Bringing Atropos Health into a governed environment, where you can actually see what an agent is doing, is what being AI-ready looks like," Doug Fridsma, M.D., Ph.D., Health Universe's chief medical and science officer, who previously served as Chief Science Officer at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
The Health Universe Network connects more than 1 million providers across more than 250 electronic health records, 100,000+ clinics and 6,000+ hospitals, representing 85% of U.S. care locations and more than 230 million patient records. Atropos Health hosts the industry’s largest federated healthcare data network, with over 300 million unique patients, and created Alexandria, a library that includes 500 million precision evidence-based findings and is projected to produce more than two billion findings by the end of 2026.
NewYork-Presbyterian adopts Signal 1 for AI management
NewYork-Presbyterian has adopted Signal 1's AI Management System to support the safe management and monitoring of artificial intelligence technologies across the institution, from tools that help detect cancer and structural heart disease to applications that support discharge planning and clinical documentation. NewYork-Presbyterian said it has been working closely with Signal 1 to design the platform and establish best practices for responsible AI management in healthcare.
The health system says it has established a rigorous governance framework to evaluate and guide the use of AI, with a focus on safety, performance and accountability to enhance care delivery for patients and staff. Signal 1’s AIMS builds on that foundation by providing a centralized system to manage all AI technologies, including predictive AI, generative AI, and emerging AI agents, with standardized risk assessment, continuous monitoring, bias detection, and audit capabilities, executives said in a press release.
Sharecare rolls out AskMD nationwide
Digital health company Sharecare announced Thursday its AI-powered health navigation experience, dubbed AskMD, is now available free nationwide.
Through the platform, users can seek health information, view health records, see insurance eligibility, find providers and more. It’s available for free on the Apple App Store, Google Play store, online and through the Medicare App Library.
“The industry is arriving at the very thing that drove me to create WebMD and later found Sharecare: People want one trusted place to understand and manage their health,” said Jeff Arnold, Sharecare co-founder and executive chairman, in a statement. “But answering a person’s health question in a vacuum is not adequate. People need guidance that reflects their medical history, their health plan coverage, the care available and convenient to them, and transparency on what it costs. AskMD combines the clinical foundation Sharecare has built over decades serving millions of people with the navigation capabilities required to help them move from a health question to a practical next step.”
Novo Nordisk, H1 partner on scaling AI-driven clinical development
AI-powered platform H1 and Novo Nordisk announced a partnership Tuesday aimed at developing proprietary AI-driven clinical development workflows and data.
The goal is to speed up pathways from discovery to approval, thus making clinical trials more efficient, the companies say. Through the partnership, H1 will also acquire the rights to Novo’s AI-enabled platform StudyHub.
“In this age of AI, the way clinical trials should be executed needs to change,” said Ariel Katz, H1 CEO, in a statement. “We are proud to partner with Novo Nordisk to enhance innovation in their clinical trials and to play an important part to bring their life-changing drugs to patients quicker.”
Strida rolls out nationwide flat-rate GLP-1 weight loss program
Telehealth platform Strida announced Monday its flat-rate physician-supervised GLP-1 program is now available nationwide.
Through the program, compounded semaglutide plans start at $159 per month and compounded tirzepatide plans at $195 per month. Eligible patients can communicate with licensed healthcare providers, manage prescriptions and receive ongoing support through the program.
“Cost and insurance paperwork are two of the biggest barriers that can prevent people from exploring GLP-1 treatment," said a Strida spokesperson in a statement. “We designed Strida to simplify the process by combining physician care, medication, follow-up support, and home delivery into one transparent monthly program. If a licensed provider determines a patient is eligible, they can begin treatment through a streamlined virtual care experience.”
The platform said the rollout reflects its continued expansion of telehealth services as demand grows.
Hackensack Meridian Health earns Joint Commission AI certification
Hackensack Meridian Health announced Thursday it has become the first health system in the U.S. to earn The Joint Commission’s Responsible Use of AI in Healthcare (RUAIH) Certification.
The New Jersey-based health system said the certification reflects its “longstanding commitment to implementing AI” in ways that prioritize patient safety, governance, privacy and more.
The new voluntary certification program from the Joint Commission is centered on five key areas of AI implementation, including governance and effective data management.
“At Hackensack Meridian Health, we are committed to integrating AI responsibly and safely across our health network to advance the way we deliver care,” said Robert C. Garrett, Hackensack Meridian Health CEO, in a statement. “AI has the potential to help clinicians detect diseases earlier, personalize treatment for every patient, improve the efficiency of our hospitals, and reduce administrative work that contributes to burnout. Most importantly, it enables physicians, nurses and team members to spend more time caring for patients.”
ModMed rolls out agentic RCM AI platform for specialty medical practices
ModMed, a provider of AI-powered software and services for specialty medical practices, is now offering a new agentic AI platform for revenue cycle management designed to optimize practice financial performance. Purpose-built for specialty healthcare, the platform will deploy intelligent AI agents to work alongside billing teams and help them optimize reimbursements, reduce denials, accelerate claim resolution, and lower the cost of collecting receivables, the company said.
The ModMed RCM AI Platform will combine specialized AI agents, human expertise and specialty-specific revenue cycle intelligence into a single, integrated platform. The company says its platform is differentiated from disconnected point solutions that focus on isolated billing tasks or managing denials after they occur. ModMed's platform is designed to work across the entire revenue lifecycle to help practices optimize financial performance, executives said.
The ModMed RCM AI platform brings together five integrated AI capabilities—RCM agents to automate time-consuming revenue cycle activities, a workflow manager to serve as an intelligent command center for human and AI-powered revenue cycle work, a billing assistant, an RCM advisor to take complex revenue cycle data and turn it into actionable financial and operational insights and a specialty intelligence engine.