Why Andreessen Horowitz's Vineeta Agarwala sees communication as the next opportunity for AI in healthcare
Why Andreessen Horowitz's Vineeta Agarwala sees communication as the next opportunity for AI in healthcare Ngai Yeung
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Vineeta Agarwala sees communication as an area where AI can enable big leaps forward in healthcare over the next few years.
Agarwala, a general partner at Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, leads investments for the firm’s fund across biotech, life sciences software and digital health with a focus on improving drug development and patient care delivery.
Agarwala told Endpoints News that whether it’s a patient who’s trying to find the right doctor, or providers getting in touch about a referral, communication happens all the time in healthcare. While AI can streamline communication and save people time, such as revenue cycle management software that can submit claims and talk to health systems on behalf of patients, AI can also fill in the gaps in care where communication is lacking, Agarwala said.
“My sandwich provider’s texting, telling me the Dasher is five minutes away, and oh, they’re actually 10 minutes late, and I don’t care,” she said. “But man, my doctor doesn’t text me. I delivered a baby and nobody texted me.”
AI can be used to automate texts to check in on patients or remind care managers of who to call, when to call them and how to get in touch with them, Agarwala said. One example of this is Memora Health, a startup she invested in, which uses AI to send patients reminders and answer their questions both before and after a procedure over text.
“We have this crazy experience where people go through dramatic healthcare experiences, and then communication falls off,” she said. “Patients want more communication, and they’re not getting it.”
Agarwala highlighted communication as the core of many value-based care models, which could benefit from asynchronous care around the clock. For example, AI can help with scheduling patients and pairing them with specialists quickly to prevent their health from deteriorating.
“Every player in the healthcare ecosystem believes that they’re not communicating well,” she said. “That smells like a huge, huge opportunity.”
Leveraging AI and automation to make communication faster and better fits into Agarwala’s broader thesis of care enablement: The way she sees it, healthcare’s problem lies not in labor shortages and a lack of providers, but a lack of smart technology that enables providers to do their jobs more efficiently.
Instead of becoming a provider, startups can enable providers by helping patients choose between different providers for the best fit, or help providers keep track of how their patients are doing after they are discharged through automating communication. The best way to improve patient experience is often to improve the efficiency of the technology that providers use, Agarwala said.