You have a bad stomachache, no time to get to your general practitioner — and no desire to spend hours in the E.R. But you sense this malady warrants medical attention.
A telehealth call, after you get an appointment, will require answers to more questions than simply: What did you eat? You may have to explain your entire medical history — your allergies, your current medications, the surgery you had two years ago.
There may be a better way.
Atlantic Health and K Health built their new AI tool to provide an alternative: Atlantic Health PatientGPT.
The core innovation is simple but significant: PatientGPT doesn’t start from scratch. Because it’s integrated directly with Atlantic Health’s electronic health record and MyChart portal, the tool can read a patient’s chart and respond with guidance grounded in their actual medical history — not generic symptom-checker advice.
A patient can simply type a question in plain language and get an answer informed by their allergies, medications, past procedures and ongoing conditions.
And when the tool determines the situation calls for more than home care, it can route the patient to a same-day, same-hour virtual primary care visit — with a clinician who already has that context, too.
Here’s how it’s designed to work, according to Atlantic Health:
- Trusted, personalized guidance: Patients ask questions in everyday language and receive information tailored to their situation rather than generic search results;
- Integrated with MyChart: The experience connects to patients’ medical records, drawing on relevant context to give more meaningful responses;
- Right care, right time: The tool helps patients understand the most appropriate level of care for what they’re experiencing;
- Seamless connection to a clinician: When treatments and appointments are appropriate, patients connect directly to an Atlantic Health clinician, including through Virtual Primary Care.
The tool is rolling out alongside Atlantic Health Virtual Primary Care, giving patients round-the-clock access to primary care physicians. Together, the two form what Atlantic Health is calling a connected “digital front door” — a single starting point where a patient can ask a health question and be guided all the way through to getting care.
It’s also a system-side play. Atlantic Health says PatientGPT can reduce friction for both patients and clinicians, helping people get routed more efficiently to the right service without needing a physical location as the first stop.
Saad Ehtisham, CEO of Atlantic Health, said the tool represents AI in healthcare at its best.
“The best use of AI in healthcare makes care more human, not less,” he said. “Technology should strengthen the connection between patients and clinicians, reduce barriers to care, and help people get the right care at the right time.
“These innovations reflect our commitment to making care more accessible while enhancing consumer experience, and they are a meaningful step toward our vision of becoming a national leader in healthcare.”
K Health, the AI-enabled care company that built the underlying technology, is no small startup experiment. Its clinical AI has already powered more than 4 million patient visits and serves thousands of new users daily, backed by more than $400 million in venture capital raised since the company launched in November 2016.
Beyond Atlantic Health, K Health’s platform is live at health systems including Hackensack Meridian Health and Penn Medicine in New Jersey, as well as Mass General Brigham, Mayo Clinic, Northwell Health, Hartford HealthCare, Novant Health and Cedars-Sinai, with additional partnerships still unannounced.
Allon Bloch, co-founder and CEO of K Health, said the company is also expanding beyond primary care into specialties such as endocrinology and cardiology.
“PatientGPT is a game changer in how patients get high-quality answers to their health and lifestyle questions,” he said. “It’s grounded in their own medical record and connected end-to-end into Atlantic Health’s care delivery system. This changes how patients access high-quality medicine, whether the need is acute, chronic, or preventive, and provides 24/7 support from everyday care to complex needs.”
The tool is launching in a beta phase and will roll out gradually to patients across New Jersey over the coming months.
And here may be the biggest takeaway: Atlantic Health officials emphasized that PatientGPT doesn’t replace physician care — it’s designed to support patients in being more actively involved in their own care, not to diagnose or treat them on its own.
Of course, as is the case with anything involving AI, there are questions and concerns.
Ran Shaul, K Health’s co-founder and chief product officer, understands that. He said trust is the central challenge in clinical AI.
“Patients and clinicians have to know the technology is safe before it can be useful,” he said. “PatientGPT is now live across multiple leading health systems, and every deployment is built on the same foundation: clinical grounding, clinician-led decisioning and policy documentation.”
