Innovaccer launches AI agents for doctors and hospitals to address burnout

As doctors and nurses face historic rates of burnout, Innovacer says artificial intelligence is here to help.

The health-care data company on Monday announced a suite of AI agents that are designed to automate repetitive, "low-value" tasks for clinicians. 

"We just don't have enough capacity in the health system to really serve everyone to the degree that they deserve," Innovaccer CEO Abhinav Shashank told CNBC in an interview. "The need for an agentic workforce to supplement our caregivers is really, really high."

AI agents can complete specific assignments without human intervention. They're sweeping across all industries as the next phase of AI takes root, and are of particular importance in health care due to burnout, labor constraints and the amount of administrative work required of medical practitioners. A shortage of 100,000 critical health-care workers is expected by 2028, according to consulting firm Mercer.

Clinicians spend nearly nine hours a week on documentation alone, according to an October study from Google Cloud.

Shashank co-founded Innovaccer in 2014 to build a platform that could streamline information exchange across the health-care system. In recent years, the company has been building additional applications that can help doctors, care managers and administrative staff work more efficiently. 

Innovaccer serves more than 60 million patients in the U.S. each day, spread across more than 100 health systems. The company announced a $275 million funding round in January, from investors including Generation Investment Management, co-founded by Al Gore, Kaiser Permanente and Microsoft's M12.

The company's suite of AI agents is called Agents of Care. It initially includes seven different agents, though Shashank said Innovaccer will add more over time. The company also plans to open up the platform so startups and customers can build their own agents, he added. 

Innovacer shared demo videos with CNBC of its agent for protocol intake and another for referrals.

For protocol intake, Innovacer collects basic information from patients and can coordinate care manager follow-ups, the company said. It's voice activated and calls patients by phone to ask questions like, "Can you please tell me in your own words what brought you to the emergency room?;" "Did your doctor clearly explain your diagnosis to you?;" and "Have you noticed any changes in your pain levels?" 

The agent converses with the patient in a natural cadence and can respond to specific details and problems. In the demo, a patient had fallen and hurt her ankle and was having trouble getting her pain medication. The agent said it would share that information with a care manager and scheduled a followup call for later that day.  

The referral agent is also voice activated and calls patients to connect them with the right specialists. In the demo, the agent helped a patient select a date and time for an appointment with a cardiologist and added a reminder to bring her photo ID, insurance card, a list of medications and relevant medical records. 

Innovaccer's other new agents are for automatically booking and managing appointments and for providing 24-hour support for patient inquiries.

Shashank said if the company does its job well, its agents could help bring more care to patients and reduce clinician burnout in a "very meaningful" way. 

"If AI can have an impact anywhere, health care is the one place where it's really, really needed," he said. 

The company has been testing the agents at five health systems. Shashank said the agent for protocol intake has been the most popular so far since calling and checking on patients can be so time consuming.

Innovaccer is rolling out the suite to its existing customers, and said it will be widely available in two to three months.

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