Fitbit app enhanced with AI-powered personal health coach.
As fitness trackers incorporate artificial intelligence, Google has developed an AI-powered personal health coach for the Fitbit app. Built using Gemini, this AI health coach combines the roles of a fitness trainer, sleep coach, and health and wellness advisor.
“We aimed to create a new kind of coach: world-class expertise that’s always accessible whenever you need it. It continuously adapts to your personal health and wellness data and is uniquely tailored to your goals and everyday life,” said Andy Abramson, head of product at Fitbit.
Fitbit plans to introduce a preview of the personal health coach as part of Fitbit Premium within the redesigned app, compatible with the latest Fitbit trackers, smartwatches, and Pixel Watches.
The health coach creates personalized fitness plans featuring detailed workout suggestions and metric targets focused on weekly progress. It can adjust these plans based on real-time data and daily insights.
Additionally, the coach includes new sleep algorithms that offer users an accurate understanding of sleep duration and stages. By analyzing sleep patterns throughout the week, the sleep coach provides insights to help improve sleep quality over time.
Furthermore, the health coach evaluates users’ health and wellness data to deliver more tailored insights. It leverages real-time metrics from Fitbit or Pixel Watches, supported by Health Connect and HealthKit integrations.
Ambience Healthcare has introduced Chart Chat, an AI copilot integrated directly within Epic’s electronic health record (EHR) system. Chart Chat combines patient chart data with medical knowledge from BMJ Best Practice and OpenAI’s reinforcement fine-tuning technology to create a new intelligence layer on top of the EHR, according to the company.
“This technology has the potential to transform how physicians interact with medical records,” said Trevor Satterfield, M.D., from St. Luke’s Health System. “It allows me to ask specific questions about a patient’s history or treatment—questions that might take minutes of searching to answer—and receive clear, accurate responses within seconds.”
Designed to address the challenge of information overload, Chart Chat lets healthcare providers ask natural language questions about a patient’s history, lab results, previous treatments, and risk factors, delivering relevant, structured answers quickly.
While many health systems have experimented with in-house AI assistants for EHRs, Ambience highlights Chart Chat’s uniqueness in combining real-time visit notes with the patient’s entire medical record. This integration provides a comprehensive view of both the current encounter and past history, enabling faster, more accurate responses without the need to toggle between multiple tools or manually piece information together.
Chart Chat will be rolled out to Ambience users over the coming months.
Key features include chart-aware question answering to help doctors swiftly locate and synthesize critical patient information—such as identifying ineffective medications, comparing past scans, or understanding complex care timelines—as well as automated risk score calculations.
Additionally, the AI copilot offers access to BMJ Best Practice’s trusted, evidence-based diagnostic and treatment content (currently in beta) to support informed clinical decision-making with the most up-to-date and accurate information.
OpenEvidence launches digital clinical assistant for patient encounters.
AI startup OpenEvidence has introduced a new feature designed to assist clinicians during patient encounters in real time.
OpenEvidence created an AI-powered medical search engine and generative AI chatbot exclusively for doctors, which summarizes and simplifies evidence-based medical information.
Called OpenEvidence Visits, this digital clinical assistant enhances encounter notes with the latest clinical evidence and guidelines. It also functions like an AI scribe, helping physicians draft clinical notes while allowing them to ask questions using the full context of their patients’ history and documentation.
OpenEvidence Visits is available for free to all verified U.S. healthcare professionals.
The feature can transcribe patient encounters and enrich assessments and plans with up-to-date guidelines, research, and clinical recommendations, according to the company’s blog post. Physicians can request edits to their notes, refine clinical reasoning, and conduct literature searches. The tool can also quickly upload and organize patient documents, creating a searchable clinical repository. Healthcare providers can ask detailed questions about patient histories, prior treatments, and other essential information from medical records.
In July, OpenEvidence raised \$210 million in a Series B funding round to expand its strategic content partnerships and grow its advanced medical knowledge library. The company also recently announced its AI model achieved a perfect 100% score on the United States Medical Licensing Examination, setting a new standard for AI proficiency in interpreting medical information.
Apella creates ambient AI solution for operating room scheduling
Health tech company Apella has expanded its AI platform to address proactive scheduling and capacity optimization for surgical teams.
Their new tool, Horizon, combines real-time OR management, scheduling optimization, and workflow efficiency insights into a single platform powered by computer vision and predictive AI, according to the company.
Leveraging Apella’s ambient sensing technology and data directly captured from the operating room, Horizon helps hospitals improve case duration accuracy and boost surgical utilization before the day starts. It integrates seamlessly with Apella’s existing real-time OR management tools and electronic health record case documentation.
Health systems like Houston Methodist are using AI to significantly increase surgical capacity and enhance OR operations.
“When OR schedules depend on manually entered data, inaccuracies can arise, affecting resources and patient care,” said Roberta Schwartz, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief innovation officer at Houston Methodist. “Ambient technology captures real-time, contextual insights that help us keep ORs efficient and uncover additional capacity that’s not visible when only reviewing block schedules.”
Early adopters have seen notable improvements in scheduling accuracy and OR capacity management. By optimizing OR schedules using Apella’s case duration forecasts, hospitals reduced delayed minutes by an average of 69 per OR per day, maintained case volumes, and cut late OR days by 46%. The percentage of cases under-scheduled by over 30 minutes dropped from 60% to 16%.
Hospitals also increased surgical volume by filling an additional two cases per OR each month through automatic identification and promotion of available time slots.
Innovaccer unveils AI-driven prior authorization solution
Healthcare AI company Innovaccer has developed a new AI-driven prior authorization solution as part of its revenue cycle performance platform, Flow.
Called Flow Auth, the tool automates the entire prior authorization process—from detecting when authorization is needed to generating appeal letters—while incorporating intelligent exception handling to keep human oversight in the loop. This helps healthcare organizations speed up care delivery and improve revenue capture, the company said.
Innovaccer estimates that Flow Auth can reduce clinician time spent on prior authorizations by 50% and double staff productivity, with an expected ROI of up to 5x through increased efficiency and fewer denials based on early implementations.
Key features include automatically identifying prior authorization requirements at the time an order is placed in the EHR, using payer-specific criteria and integrated payer rules. It also creates a “payer-ready” packet by assembling relevant clinical documentation, notes, labs, and imaging, flagging missing items and organizing everything in the format expected by payers.
The solution can submit these packets through various payer connectivity options, including APIs, portals, and fax, while also monitoring authorization status.
Flow Auth supports a broad range of major payers such as Humana, UnitedHealthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Aetna, and others, according to Innovaccer.
Teladoc Health acquires Australian virtual care provider
Teladoc Health has acquired Telecare, an Australian virtual care company, as part of its effort to expand its international presence.
Telecare operates Australia’s leading virtual care clinic and offers software solutions to the healthcare sector. With over 300 virtual specialists across more than 30 specialties, Telecare supports GP-referred appointments and provides virtual care services to public hospitals nationwide, helping reduce patient wait times and improve access to specialty care in underserved areas, according to both companies.
The acquisition was finalized on August 8, with financial details undisclosed. The deal is expected to have a minimal impact on Teladoc Health’s financial results for the year.
Teladoc Health, which generated over \$2.5 billion in revenue in 2024, serves more than 100 million people globally. Internationally, it partners with organizations such as the NHS in the U.K., Charité in Germany, the Canadian health system, and French Social Security.
This acquisition aligns with Teladoc Health’s enterprise strategy to grow its international footprint. With 15 years of experience in Australia, Teladoc already provides virtual health services to millions of Australian members through insurer and hospital partnerships. Recently, it introduced virtual care solutions to the Australian hospital market, including a virtual neonatology program at Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and a virtual telesurgery support system with Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service.
Telecare will remain under the leadership of its current founders and management team and will continue operating in the Australian market under the Telecare brand.
