Persistent shortages of clinical workforce continue to weigh heavily on global health systems. For example, McKinsey estimates the US faces a shortage of 200,000 to 450,000 nurses available for direct patient care, equating to a 10 to 20 percent gap.¹  

At General Catalyst, we believe that artificial intelligence (AI) can serve as a fundamentally new building block for a resilient healthcare system by increasing the supply and scalability of providers while reducing the unit cost of care. That’s why we co-created Hippocratic AI last year with our Health Assurance Ecosystem and Andreessen Horowitz. 

Today, we are thrilled to further our partnership with the Hippocratic AI team by co-leading the company’s $53M Series A. Since the founding of Hippocratic AI a year ago, the company trained its foundational model and agentic systems, achieved key safety thresholds, identified novel use cases to address the healthcare workforce crisis, and established partnerships with 40 health systems, payors, and digital health companies. We believe Hippocratic AI has grown rapidly due to sound execution and exemplary radical collaboration with the industry. 

Now, Hippocratic has begun the next stage of its Responsible AI journey by releasing its first product for a third phase of safety assessments, this time with partner healthcare organizations, in addition to expanding tests with physicians and nurses. Once testing is complete, the company will launch its autonomous AI agent platform that will perform low-risk, non-diagnostic, patient-facing services, equipped with multi-functional tools, including human guardrails and the ability to demonstrate empathetic care. At scale, we see Hippocractic’s super staffing vision not only bridging the workforce gap in healthcare, but also enabling humans to practice at the top of their license, unlocking significant innovation in care delivery services and accelerating the adoption of business models that align more strongly with patients.

We feel privileged to continue this category-defining journey with the Hippocratic AI team, and invite all healthcare innovators who share our belief to sign up for early access here.

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^{1. 2024 health systems outlook: A host of challenges ahead, McKinsey (January 2024)}