Munjal Shah’s Empathetic AI Vision: Transforming Health Care with Hippocratic Principles
In the face of mounting healthcare staffing shortages, Munjal Shah, co-founder and CEO of Hippocratic AI, envisions a future where empathetic artificial intelligence agents work alongside human medical professionals. This collaboration is not about replacing human touch, but about enhancing it. Munjal Shah’s ambitious goal is to develop AI services powered by large language models that can handle a range of low-risk, nondiagnostic tasks such as chronic care reminders and patient navigation. This could potentially alleviate the workload of healthcare professionals, giving them more time to focus on critical tasks and patient care.
Munjal Shah and his team at Hippocratic AI have made significant strides toward realizing this vision. In February 2023, the company announced beta test partnerships with over 40 providers, health systems, and digital health companies, including prominent names like Memorial Hermann Health System, University of Vermont Health Network, Fraser Health, and Side Health. Further highlighting the immense potential of Hippocratic AI’s approach, the company recently closed a $53 million Series A funding round, valuing it at $500 million with total funding of around $120 million – a notable achievement for a startup just two years old.
The funding round, led by Premji Invest and General Catalyst with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, underscores investor confidence in Munjal Shah strategy of using large language models (LLMs) to help mitigate the healthcare industry’s widespread staffing shortages and provide more accessible, cost-effective care. With nursing shortages projected to reach 200,000 annually through 2026 and the over-65 population expected to grow by 48% by 2030, Munjal Shah believes AI can play a “revolutionary” role in filling the gap.
“Generative AI can help us create health care agents that will do nondiagnostic, low-risk tasks,” Munjal Shah explained. “They can call you before a colonoscopy and say, ‘Make sure you take that drink and stop your blood thinner.’ They can call you after a visit and say, ‘Did you get your antibiotic from the pharmacy?’ We don’t realize how much time goes into these very low-risk, routine activities, and if we can just augment that, we can go a long way toward closing the staffing gap.”
Munjal Shah stresses that Hippocratic AI’s approach prioritizes safety and empathy above all else, adhering to the principle of ‘Do No Harm’ that inspired the company’s name. The company’s commitment to safety is not just a slogan, but a guiding principle that is deeply ingrained in its operations. Rather than rushing to market, the company has engaged in rigorous, multiphase testing, collaborating with over 1,100 licensed nurses and 130 physicians to assess everything from medical accuracy to conversational appropriateness. This thorough testing process, backed by the latest funding round, reinforces the company’s commitment to building a safe and effective product, instilling trust and confidence in the audience.
“When we started the company, we prioritized safety as our top value,” said Munjal Shah. “This is why we named the company after the physicians’ Hippocratic oath and made our tagline ‘Do No Harm.’ This has been our guiding principle since the founding.”
According to Munjal Shah, Hippocratic AI’s focus on empathy truly sets it apart. Through a partnership with Nvidia, the company is working to reduce the latency of its AI agents’ responses, making them feel even more natural and human-like in conversational interactions. Internal research has shown that even minor improvements in response times can significantly enhance patients’ emotional engagement and comfort levels with the AI, making them more likely to continue using the technology and improving outcomes.
While the healthcare industry grapples with staffing shortages, Munjal Shah and Hippocratic AI’s empathetic AI agents could offer a powerful solution to at least some of the increasing demand for care, particularly in high-volume, low-risk contexts that play an essential part in achieving better outcomespatient outcomesjal Shah stated, “Today, roughly 40 health systems and insurance companies have said, A, we’d like to help you make sure it’s safe, and B, we’d like to use it when it becomes available.”
