Arundhati Parmar at MedCity News Wrote:[At his Senate confirmation hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated] that President Trump has urged him to “end the hemorrhage of rural hospitals” by leveraging innovations like AI and telemedicine. Stating that would have been perfect. But then he went a step further by delving deeper into such “innovations,” as he called them.

“Cleveland Clinic has developed an AI nurse that you cannot distinguish from a human being that has diagnostics [capability] as good as any doctor,” he said, according to a livestream of the hearing. “We can provide concierge care to every American in this country even [in] those remote parts of Wyoming, Montana and Alaska, etc.”

There is only one problem.

No such AI nurse exists in the Cleveland Clinic. Here’s an emailed statement from a spokeswoman:

“We believe that the thoughtful and safe use of AI has the potential to enhance medical care for patients. We are utilizing the technology in many areas of our health system, and while we appreciate being mentioned as an innovator, we have not developed an AI nurse as part of our efforts,” wrote Andrea Pacetti, director of media and public relations.

So what could Kennedy have meant?

It’s entirely possible that Kennedy saw Hippocratic’s AI agent in action in a phone conversation with a patient […] Hippocratic AI’s CEO, Munjal Shah, has spoken eloquently (albeit fantastically) about a world where AI nurses could dramatically alter the landscape of chronic disease management.

But Shah was very clear that he is not going down the path of AI doing diagnostics.

“In fact, we explicitly are not even going to allow people to try to use it to do diagnoses,” Shah insisted in the October 2023 interview. “I don’t think it’s safe, honestly.”