DNV Ventures: Partnering with Newton’s Tree to bring safe and quality assured AI solutions to healthcare
DNV Ventures is proud to announce an investment and partnership with Newton’s Tree, a pioneering AI deployment platform aimed at assuring and managing AI software in hospitals in a safe and reliable way.
This funding round, also supported by distinguished investors including Triple Point Ventures, Calm/Storm and Octopus, marks the beginning of an exciting journey to accelerate AI adoption in hospitals.
We look forward to combining our expertise in evaluation and assurance in the medical field and being a strong contributor to achieving the next milestones together, says Kaare Helle, Venture Director, DNV Ventures.
DNV had the pleasure of welcoming Haris as a speaker at our Digital Health Summit in 2024. During his talk, Haris demonstrated strong credibility from his background as a clinical scientist and manager for AI initiatives within the NHS. Together with the team’s deep expertise in AI initiatives and governance frameworks in medicine, Newton’s Tree is uniquely positioned to support hospitals on the deployment and management of AI applications going forward.
The future of healthcare depends on our ability to adopt AI responsibly and at scale. Our partnership with DNV Ventures brings their global leadership in assurance to our deep expertise in clinical AI, giving hospitals the confidence to embrace innovation safely. This is a pivotal step to making AI hospitals a reality, says Haris Shuaib, Founder and CEO of Newton’s Tree.
Global healthcare at crossroads
DNV Ventures investment in Newtons Tree is driven by the numerous challenges healthcare systems face today. These include aging populations, a rise in long-term, chronic, and lifestyle diseases, and an increase in mental health disorders. As a result, there is a higher demand for medical care services, which in turn places greater operational and economic pressure on hospitals.
With a global average of 10% of GDP, the health sector is a substantial part of the economy in most countries and plays a crucial role due to its impact on public health and well-being. Regrettably, in recent decades, health services have become more costly, growing by ~120% in the USA since 2000 and by 40% in the EU since 2014, significantly outpacing both inflation and prices for other goods and services.
As these trends grow stronger, it can lead to inequality where, increasingly, only wealthier individuals can afford higher quality care. Additionally, it becomes challenging to educate enough healthcare professionals and offer them sustainable workloads (healthcare practitioners have among the highest rates of sick leave due to exposure to illnesses and stress), making it difficult to maintain a high-quality healthcare offering.
Key challenges for AI adoption in healthcare: proving efficacy and managing IT integrations
As healthcare systems worldwide grapple with these escalating challenges, innovative solutions are urgently needed to enhance efficiency and accessibility. A greater reliance on software, digitalization, and automation are all suggested as potential contributors to enable the healthcare sector to deliver care more effectively. However, these innovations will only have the intended impact if they are designed, implemented, and operated in a responsible and safe manner.
With the overall aim of promoting safe and trustworthy AI, the European AI Act went into effect in August 2024. The Act was introduced to ensure fundamental rights while fostering innovation and requires organizations to prove that their systems are safe, effective, and compliant. For healthcare professionals and hospital management, it is especially important to document the safety and performance of AI in critical processes such as diagnostics, treatment procedures, and administrative tasks, while ensuring appropriate treatment of sensitive patient data.
There is no shortage of ways AI can be applied to enhance efficiency in healthcare. For example, AI can improve efficiency and patient care by automating EHR documentation, providing diagnoses, offering medical consultations, prioritizing patients, and assessing disease risk. It also frees up healthcare professionals' time by automating administrative tasks such as communication, journaling, coding medical claims, and invoicing.
With the promise of AI, several startups and larger companies are experimenting with technological innovation in the sector. However, the main bottlenecks to adopting software in hospitals are the lack of clinical trials and evaluations, coupled with the challenging task of integrating, managing and keeping secure a portfolio of a portfolio of third-party AI software in hospitals’ current IT architecture.
Helping hospitals simplify and reduce IT integration costs, while ensuring safe data handling and accurate clinical results, is crucial for AI adoption. This is exactly the vision of Newton’s Tree.
Newton’s Tree, making it easy for hospitals to trust and procure AI software
Founded in 2023 in London, England, by Haris Shuaib, Newton’s Tree develops and markets a vendor neutral AI integration platform layer that streamlines the deployment of AI software into hospitals. Their two-sided marketplace simplifies the clinical evaluation, procurement, and integration of AI software into hospitals' existing IT architecture and clinical workflows.
This allows AI software vendors to deploy their solutions via Newton’s Tree’s platform in days rather than months, significantly reducing the time and complexity associated with traditional IT integration projects within hospitals.
To date, Newton’s Tree’s team have enjoyed trust and credibility in the sector and deployed its platform in multiple NHS hospitals and onboarded tens of AI-solutions to the platform.
The hospitals that we have worked with have expressed for some time that adopting AI solutions into routine work is challenging. Newton’s Tree provides a platform for hospitals through which they can access, integrate and monitor, while AI vendors benefit from a faster and more efficient deployment process. We look forward to working together with Newton’s Tree to set new standards for how to assure the adoption of AI in healthcare, says Stephen McAdam, Digital Health Segment Director, DNV