The primary of the Senate affirmation hearings on Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s candidacy because the Secretary of Well being and Human Providers was predictably contentious, with Democrats (and a few Republicans) grilling him for his anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, amongst different issues on Wednesday.
Apart from that, there have been a number of situations the place his lack of expertise about federal applications he’ll oversee as HHS Secretary have been strikingly obvious — for instance, it appeared that Kennedy didn’t know that the majority Medicaid sufferers didn’t pay any premiums given this system is for low-income sufferers, or that Medicaid is funded by each state and native cash.
A laughable lapse — although probably nobody seen it as a result of he stated with nice gusto and conviction — arose when he ascribed an innovation to one of many nation’s most revered educational medical facilities: The Cleveland Clinic. It was in response to a query from Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) who requested for a dedication that Kennedy look into the closure of rural hospitals and attempt to alleviate the problem for individuals in these areas.
Kennedy responded by saying that the challenges of rural healthcare is one amongst two points that unites Democrats and Republicans, the opposite being pharmacy profit supervisor (PBM) reform to rein in excessive drug costs. He added that President Trump has urged him to “finish the hemorrhage of rural hospitals” by leveraging improvements like AI and telemedicine. Stating that may have been good. However then he went a step additional by delving deeper into such “improvements,” as he known as them.
“Cleveland Clinic has developed an AI nurse that you just can not distinguish from a human being that has diagnostics [capability] pretty much as good as any physician,” he stated, in line with a livestream of the listening to. “We will present concierge care to each American on this nation even [in] these distant components of Wyoming, Montana and Alaska, and so forth.”
There is just one drawback.
No such AI nurse exists within the Cleveland Clinic. Right here’s an emailed assertion from a spokeswoman:
“We imagine that the considerate and secure use of AI has the potential to reinforce medical take care of sufferers. We’re using the expertise in lots of areas of our well being system, and whereas we admire being talked about as an innovator, we’ve not developed an AI nurse as a part of our efforts,” wrote Andrea Pacetti, director of media and public relations.
So what might Kennedy have meant?
It’s solely attainable that Kennedy noticed Hippocratic’s AI agent in motion in a telephone dialog with a affected person — the identical factor that has gotten Rob Allen, the CEO of Intermountain Well being, so excited. Hippocratic AI’s CEO, Munjal Shah, has spoken eloquently (albeit fantastically) a few world the place AI nurses might dramatically alter the panorama of persistent illness administration.
However Shah was very clear that he’s not happening the trail of AI doing diagnostics.
“Actually, we explicitly are usually not even going to permit individuals to attempt to use it to do diagnoses,” Shah insisted within the October 2023 interview. “I don’t suppose it’s secure, actually.”
So what was RFK Jr. referring to when he stated the AI nurse has diagnostics functionality pretty much as good as a human? Beats me.
Then there may be one other query. Did the Cleveland Clinic present a demo of Hippocratic AI in motion as a result of it’s piloting it or evaluating with? Pacetti, the spokeswoman wouldn’t touch upon Hippocratic AI in any respect, nevertheless it’s solely attainable that they’re conscious of the expertise in the identical method Allen of Intermountain Well being is although the latter hasn’t deployed it. I’ve it on good authority that the Mayo Clinic can be working or shall be working quickly with Hippocratic AI. The corporate and its AI nurse has been written about endlessly.
To get again to Kennedy, he’s dangling a future not right here but to senators apprehensive about their constituents in rural America. At the very least he ought to get his details straight earlier than the second spherical of hearings.
Watch the Senate listening to excerpt beneath with the e-mail affirmation from Cleveland Clinic (barely edited for size)
