Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin has invested in a health care artificial intelligence startup and is piloting the startup's product, marking the Milwaukee-area health system's first foray into generative AI.
The startup is Layer Health, which announced its launch Tuesday. Its technology uses AI to quickly perform any clinical, administrative or research task that requires chart review from unstructured data.
Wauwatosa-based Froedtert & MCW invested in Layer Health through its digital health hub, Inception Health. It invested alongside Google Ventures and General Catalyst in a $4 million round for Layer Health.
Layer Health spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Its co-founder and CEO is David Sontag, who's on leave from his post as an MIT computer science professor.
Froedtert & MCW's use of Layer's technology marks the health system's first foray into generative AI, the large language model-based technology popularized by ChatGPT, according to Froedtert Health chief data and analytics officer Deborah Cray.
Layer Health's AI platform will "supercharge" Froedtert & MCW's nurse abstraction team during chart reviews, enabling them to quickly and effectively find and submit data to clinical registries, the startup said. Clinical registries are essential for benchmarking across clinical specialties and identifying areas for improving the quality of care, according to Layer Health.
"When we don't have a lot of nurses, it's really hard to rationalize someone who's going to sit and read charts all day instead of being at the bedside," Cray said. "But if that nurse reviewer can do more in a day's time, now we can participate in more registries, get more performance feedback, do more patient care improvement work."
Froedtert & MCW is piloting Layer Health's technology with the nurse abstraction team at its main medical center, focusing on key surgical performance metrics, Cray said. It hopes to eventually expand the use to its community hospitals, she said.
Layer Health is the 18th investment Inception Health has made from its $15 million investment fund, Inception Health director Mike Maschek said. The organization in September announced its investment in Toronto-based Homecare Hub, which described itself as an Airbnb-like solution for home senior care.
Also this year, Inception Health invested in a company called Third Eye Health and another company that it hasn't yet announced, Maschek said. The organization has invested nearly all of the capital in its investment fund, he said.
