Utah's AI experiment enters a new phase with more clinical applications

[upbeat music] Heather, welcome to the Gist Healthcare Podcast.

Yeah, it's great to be here.

So let's set the scene just a little bit.

Utah became the first state in the nation to launch, you know, an AI regulatory sandbox program, which allows developers to test their technologies in real-world settings, you know, within a regulatory framework.

The state announced its first clinical partnership earlier this year.

So take us back to that announcement and what we've seen from that initial pilot so far.

Right.

So this is, um, a very closely watched initiative.

I think the healthcare industry, um, the AI industry, regulators, lawmakers, a lot of people are, are really paying attention to this initiative.

So back in January, um, the state inked a partnership with startup Doctronic to test out an AI-powered system for prescription renewals.

So this basically is just for, you know, prescriptions that patients already have, and the program allows like 30, 60, or 90-day renewals for medications already prescribed by licensed providers.

So this really kicked off the first, uh, clinical AI pilot.

The company limited the types of medications to 191 commonly prescribed drugs.

And then, um, just a few months ago, the company, uh, kind of shared some data on the early results, and the first five months of Doctronic's phase one pilot suggested that its AI prescription refill system generally aligned with physicians' judgment.

So that's, that's kind of an interesting result.

And now where, where we are today is that the state has decided to expand the sandbox program, um, and basically added a, a healthcare pillar to, to the program.