Darwin's Our Take: OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Health to further integrate users' health information

With the launch of ChatGPT Health, OpenAI wants to make an artificial intelligence tool that millions of people use every day exponentially more personalized.

Every day, more than 40 million people in the United States use ChatGPT to find answers to their health care questions, according to a report released by OpenAI. Globally, OpenAI said in the launch announcement, more than 230 million people ask ChatGPT questions about health and wellness each week.

ChatGPT Health, which OpenAI said “operates as a separate space” within ChatGPT, will allow users to connect their medical records and health-related apps so that ChatGPT can analyze the data contained therein and provide users with personalized responses.

OpenAI cautioned that ChatGPT Health, or simply Health, as the company often refers to it, is not meant to replace medical care. It is not to be used for diagnosing health issues, nor is it intended to be used for creating treatment plans.

Rather, OpenAI said, ChatGPT Health was developed to help users with tasks such as understanding their test results, preparing for medical appointments, accessing dietary and exercise recommendations, and comparing health insurance options based on their specific health care patterns.

To protect and secure users’ health data, OpenAI said ChatGPT Health has “additional, layered protections” beyond those already built into ChatGPT that are “designed specifically for health.” This includes purpose-built encryption, OpenAI noted.

Users who initiate a health-related conversation in ChatGPT will be prompted to move the conversation into ChatGPT Health to gain these extra privacy and security protections. All health data and ChatGPT conversations will be stored separately from users’ other chats, according to OpenAI. Users will have the ability to delete memories in ChatGPT Health at any time, the company noted.

OpenAI said conversations in ChatGPT Health would not be used to train the company’s foundation models.

As would be expected, users will need to give their consent before ChatGPT Health can access their medical records. To enable access to health care providers, OpenAI has partnered with b.well Connected Health, which OpenAI describes as “the largest and most secure network of live, connected health data for U.S. consumers.”

Through this partnership, OpenAI has integrated b.well’s recently launched SDK for Health AI, a software development kit for health care AI assistants, into ChatGPT Health. According to b.well, the SDK “unifies real-world health information into a single AI-ready dataset.” This includes unstructured data such as clinical notes, medical imaging, lab reports, and recordings.

Users will also need to give permission before connecting their health and wellness apps to ChatGPT Health, even if the apps are already connected to ChatGPT.

OpenAI said it developed ChatGPT Health in collaboration with physicians over a two-year period.

For now, ChatGPT Health is only available to a group of early adopters, but anyone can sign up for a waitlist to gain access to the new tool when it becomes more broadly available in the weeks ahead.

OUR TAKE:

Like essentially any new health-related technology, ChatGPT Health holds great promise — if it’s used as intended. Eventually, it could go a long way toward reducing the fragmentation within the U.S. health care system that continues to stymy patients, providers, and payers.

In the near term and beyond, ChatGPT Health could be immensely useful in helping patients make sense of their medical records and their overall health. And, in theory, better-informed patients should make life easier for their physicians, right?

But patients who turn to the internet for health information aren’t necessarily well informed, and many do use the information they find to self-diagnose. Some also skip over the step of consulting with their physician and use the information they find on the internet (or on social media) to create their own treatment plan.

There’s no reason, really, to believe they will use ChatGPT Health any differently, despite any cautionary messages OpenAI may provide. The biggest advantage ChatGPT Health offers compared with generalized internet searches, of course, is that the information ChatGPT Health will use to interact with users is grounded in each user’s specific medical data, which *should* result in accurate conversations between chatbot and user.  

A considerable share, and maybe even the majority, of those who are inclined to meet new digital technologies with enthusiasm will likely welcome the opportunity to try ChatGPT Health.

Those who are skeptical of such technologies, or AI in general, will question the wisdom of giving ChatGPT Health (and OpenAI) access to their medical records and other health information. Even though OpenAI says it has taken extra precautions to protect users’ privacy, businesses and individuals not bound by HIPAA regulations, including app developers, will have access to all of that data.

And there’s always the threat of bad actors gaining access. Remember Change Healthcare?  

OpenAI is attempting to create a safer environment for people to access information they need to be their healthiest. Plenty of people in the U.S. don’t have a primary care physician or health insurance. Even those who do often must wait weeks or months for an appointment, or drive long distances to see their physician. And even though Amazon One Medical and others continue to make inroads (see the Rush brief below), not everyone has access to telehealth.

Used properly, ChatGPT Health could — and probably will — be a lifesaver. It also has the potential for damage.

So far, the use of AI in health care, and generative AI in particular, has been largely successful. That’s because most of those who’ve been using it — health systems, life sciences companies, insurers, and others — have put substantial guardrails in place. Will OpenAI and b.well’s guardrails be sufficient to protect users throughout the general population as they begin to explore this new tool? We’ll see.

What else you need to know

Eli Lilly agreed to pay $1.2 billion to acquire Ventyx Biosciences, a San Diego-based biotech that develops oral small molecule drugs for inflammatory-mediated diseases. Ventyx’s pipeline includes candidates that target the NLRP3 inflammasome, a multiprotein complex that regulates inflammatory signaling. This is Lilly’s first foray into NLRP3 inhibitors, a class of drugs with the potential to treat cardiometabolic, cardiovascular, and immunological conditions, as well as neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

Novo Nordisk, Lilly’s primary competitor in the area of weight management, is evaluating an NLRP3 inhibitor as a potential therapy for cardiovascular disease and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis through a partnership with Ventus Therapeutics. Roche is developing an NLRP3 inhibitor called selnoflast, and several smaller drug companies and startups are also assessing NLRP3 candidates.

According to Lilly’s announcement, the company will pay $14 per share of Ventyx, representing roughly a 62% premium to the stock’s average trading price in the month before the agreement was announced. The boards of both companies have approved the acquisition, and Lilly said it expects to close the transaction by midyear. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by regulators and Vertex’s shareholders.

Rush University System for Health and Amazon One Medical are partnering to improve access to primary and specialty care in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana. Rush said in a press release that the collaboration increases coordinated health services provided by the two organizations. Amazon One Medical has eight clinics in the Chicago market, and now, Amazon One Medical patients can transition to Rush for specialty care as needed, through in-person appointments with Rush specialists and virtual same- or next-day appointments through Rush Connect Virtual Specialty Care. The health system launched Rush Connect+ in July as a subscription-based service that gives members across the U.S. 24/7 access to virtual care and personal navigators. Kate Jones, Rush’s chief strategy officer, told Becker’s Hospital Review that the health system views the partnership with Amazon One Medical “as augmenting our strategy.”

RWJBarnabas Health signed a definitive agreement with Englewood Health that would integrate Englewood, a nonprofit health system in northern New Jersey with one acute care hospital and a network that includes more than 100 sites of care, into the larger nonprofit health system. Based in West Orange, N.J., RWJBarnabas Health is the state’s largest academic health system, with 14 hospitals and 9,000 affiliated physicians who provide care at more than 700 patient care locations across New Jersey, according to the announcement. Englewood’s flagship hospital is one of the state’s few remaining independent hospitals. As part of the agreement, RWJBarnabas Health said it would invest approximately $500 million to expand and enhance Englewood’s facilities and services.

The transaction, which RWJBarnabas anticipates closing in the first quarter of 2027, will require regulatory approval. In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission took steps to prevent a merger between Englewood Health and Hackensack Meridian, and in 2022 the FTC sued to keep RWJBarnabas from acquiring Saint Peter’s Healthcare System.

Corewell Health and Quest Diagnostics have established a joint venture named Diagnostic Lab of Michigan. Quest is the majority stakeholder, with 51% of the joint venture, and Corewell owns the remaining 49%. Quest said in a news release that the two entities’ existing laboratories would continue to provide lab services to the joint venture until a new, 100,000-square-foot facility located at the Corewell Health Southfield Center opens in the first quarter of next year. Quest has also begun to manage lab operations for Corewell Health’s 21 hospitals.

CivicaScript, a nonprofit unit of Civica Rx, now offers two new products: insulin glargine-yfgn, which is interchangeable with Sanofi’s Lantus, and ustekinumab-aauz, a biosimilar indicated for plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis that is interchangeable with Janssen Biotech’s Stelara. CivicaScript is selling the insulin glargine product to pharmacies at a price of $45 for a box of five prefilled pens and to consumers for no more than $55. CivicaScript’s members and partners can purchase ustekinumab-aauz at a wholesale acquisition cost of $985 for a 12-week supply of 90 mg prefilled syringes and $575 for a 12-week supply of 45 mg prefilled syringes, according to the announcement.

What we’re reading

Using FDA Law to Threaten Medical Practice. NEJM, 1.7.26 (subscription or registration required)

The Missing Piece: Why Employers Still Can’t Solve The Health Care Puzzle. Health Affairs, 1.6.26

AI models were given four weeks of therapy: the results worried researchers. Nature, 1.9.26