“Akido Labs is using artificial intelligence to bring medical care to the streets of New York.
The Los Angeles-based healthcare provider has created an AI doctor that suggests diagnoses and treatments based on patients’ symptoms and medical histories. A human doctor approves, modifies or rejects the recommendations.
Now Akido is bringing this technology, ScopeAI, to ride-share drivers in New York through a partnership with two groups that can help it connect with these workers: the Independent Drivers Guild, an advocacy group, and Workers Benefit Fund, which works with labor unions and policy leaders to provide health and other benefits to gig workers.
Akido plans to station ScopeAI-equipped physicians in offices and mobile locations around the city, starting in Queens, to speed access to primary and specialty care for drivers who might otherwise skip the doctor to avoid taking unpaid time off. [..]
As AI enters patient care, it is raising concerns that it might increase physicians’ burnout rather than lessen it. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Johns Hopkins University, for example, recently argued in JAMA Health Forum that medical organizations are adopting AI faster than laws and regulations governing its use are evolving. This puts a burden on physicians: They feel pressure to accept AI recommendations to minimize medical errors, but bear responsibility for knowing when to overrule or defer to the technology.
Hospitals and medical practices should share responsibility with doctors for decisions reached through AI and these organizations should continually review their use of the technology, said Christopher Myers, associate professor of management and organization at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and an author of the article.
“We assume that because physicians have access to AI, they should definitely get it right,” Myers said. “We should be thinking more on a system level.” [..]
Akido now says it serves more than 500,000 patients across 26 specialties and has locations for in-person doctor visits in California and Rhode Island in addition to its latest expansion into New York.
Akido developed ScopeAI using its historical data on patient visits to train its models to accurately predict diagnoses and treatments. It introduced it in August at a cardiology practice near Los Angeles and now intends to extend it broadly across its practice.
Akido uses a human, certified medical assistant it has trained to sit with patients and ask questions prompted by ScopeAI, which asks further questions based on the person’s answers. With ScopeAI, these appointments can be longer to gather more informaion, said Goodner, Akido’s chief technology officer. The typical visit is 30 to 45 minutes, according to Akido, which says ScopeAI doesn’t need Food and Drug Administration approval because physicians make the final call.
Michael Cardamone, a managing partner of Forum Ventures who isn’t an Akido backer, said he doesn’t believe AI will replace doctors but that it is inevitable AI will become more commonly used as a clinical decision-support tool.”
B Gormley, Wall Street Journal, 2025.3.28