Chris Winfield, founder of Understanding A.I., tells'Fox & Friends Weekend' host Will Cain about a study showing patients preferred medical answers from artificial intelligence over doctors. Artificial intelligence has been used "behind the scenes" in health care for decades, but with the growing popularity of new technologies such as ChatGPT, it's now playing a bigger role in patient care -- including during routine doctor's visits. Physicians may rely on AI to record conversations, manage documentation and create personalized treatment plans. And that raises the question of whether they must get patients' permission first to use the technology during appointments. "While regulations may vary by jurisdiction, obtaining informed consent for using AI is often considered best practice and aligns with the principles of medical ethics," Dr. Harvey Castro, a Dallas, Texas-based board-certified emergency medicine physician and national speaker on artificial intelligence in health care, told Fox News Digital.

San Francisco-based Augmedix has progressed from a Google Glass-based clinical documentation startup to a publicly-traded, AI-enabled ambient automation platform that documents patient encounters and generates medical notes that can be transferred to an EHR. The company, founded in 2012, also provides pre- and post-visit documentation offerings to give providers a more complete digital picture of a patient's health journey. Ian Shakil, founder, director and chief strategy officer at Augmedix, spoke with MobiHealthNews to discuss the company's evolution and its anticipated release of a new product in 2023. MobiHealthNews: Can you tell me about Augmedix and how it works in the ambient documentation space? Ian Shakil: I started the company about 10 years ago with the mission to rehumanize the provider/patient interaction.

Augmedix, a startup that uses natural language processing (NLP) and devices to populate medical documentation from clinician-patient conversations, has raised $19 million in Series B funding. Redmile Group, McKesson Ventures, DCM Ventures, Wanxiang Healthcare Investments and other unnamed investors all contributed. Founded in 2012, the startup made a name for itself by outfitting doctors with Google Glass devices. Through these, professional medical scribes could remotely observe the visit and, with the help of NLP, fill out the patient's necessary documentation. This approach allows the clinician to remained focused on engaging their patient, only needing to sign off on or make minor adjustments to the documentation at the end of the visit.

The new Google venture is called the Launchpad Studio and it was unveiled in November 2017. The aim is to provide a new health-orientated artificial intelligence access path to Google experts for start-up companies to take advantage of. The service, PharmaPhorum reports, also aims to assist new ventures via product validation and also to give them feedback with their new projects and to help to nurture them into commercially viable healthcare solutions. As part of this process, Google will give eligible new ventures $50,000 in funding plus full access to business focused Google products, such as Google Cloud. Malika Cantor, a program manager with Launchpad, told TechCrunch: "It's our hypothesis that there's a lot of learning to be extracted by looking at an industry and all the ways machine learning can be applied across that industry. We have the startups draft a project proposal that addresses a sizable machine learning problem they're approaching in the next 6 months. We focus on solving the technical challenges."

With the mandate of fostering an ecosystem of applied machine learning startups, Google on Wednesday revealed the first four companies to join its Launchpad Studio and said this initial track is aimed squarely at healthcare and biotech. It--s no secret that Google and rivals Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft are eyeing the $2.7 trillion healthcare market as fertile ground for technological disruption--though it appears Google is the first of the titans to formally establish a program for working with startups specific to the industry. The first four startups, Augmedix, BrainQ, Byteflies and Cytovale, get what Google deftly described as --equity-free support,-- and access to Google mentors, community engagement as well as datasets and testing environments for prototyping, as examples. Augmedix is working to minimize the time doctors spend on a computer during patient visits by leveraging Google Glass to automate scribing and collect audio, video and written notes then use natural language processing to help clinicians make sense of that information. Cantor described BrainQ as a research project concentrating on taking advances in neural networks and applying machine learning to signal processing to develop customized treatment protocols for people who cannot walk anymore, whether because of a stroke, spinal or brain injuries.

With the mandate of fostering an ecosystem of applied machine learning startups, Google on Wednesday revealed the first four companies to join its Launchpad Studio and said this initial track is aimed squarely at healthcare and biotech. It's no secret that Google and rivals Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft are eyeing the $2.7 trillion healthcare market as fertile ground for technological disruption -- though it appears Google is the first of the titans to formally establish a program for working with startups specific to the industry. "Launchpad Studio is the accelerator engine of Google," said Malika Cantor, Program Manager for Launchpad Studio. "We're focused on machine learning startups, we look at technology problems and want to bridge the gap between healthcare and the frontier tech industry because there's a lot of promise but general skepticism about the role AI and machine learning will play." The first four startups, Augmedix, BrainQ, Byteflies and Cytovale, get what Google deftly described as "equity-free support," and access to Google mentors, community engagement as well as datasets and testing environments for prototyping, as examples.

Jim Andrews is in a medical office wearing just a hospital gown, staring at his doctor of 11 years, who is staring back at him through the sleek, metallic lens of Google Glass. As the doctor examines Andrews, a new kind of medical scribe is watching the examination, transcribing everything he sees. The scribe, named Rahul, is thousands of miles away in India, and he is viewing the office visit live through the pint-size, WiFi-connected camera attached to the doctor's glasses. "When was his last physical?" Rahul's nearly immediate answer pops up in a text bubble display in the right corner of the doctor's field of vision.

Google Glass could be coming to health systems, as startup Augmedix has secured US 17 million in a strategic round of funding that includes investments from Sutter Health, Dignity Health, Catholic Health Initiatives, TriHealth, and one other. This round of funding allows Augmedix to scale Google Glass powered service across the health systems and private clinics. The goal is to allow those in the health systems to have more time to focus on their patients, and less time spent working on documentation. "We believe that delivering quality, personalized patient care shouldn't be at odds with maintaining state-of-the-art electronic health records--both are important," said Ian Shakil, CEO of Augmedix. "With our wearable solution, healthcare organizations have the technology tools necessary to drive EHR efficiencies, enhance services, and improve patient care, all at the same time."