THE CRUNCH
People in Utah can now get an acne prescription written entirely by AI. Healthcare startup Nolla Health says its app lets users scan their faces, analyses acne severity and autonomously writes a prescription, launching as a pilot programme with physician oversight that gradually loosens as patient numbers grow.
The rollout is deliberately staged. For the first 100 patients, two physicians approve every AI-generated prescription before it is issued. That loosens for up to 500 patients, whose prescriptions are sent first and reviewed by doctors afterwards. Beyond that, physicians check a sample of at least 10% of prescriptions, according to The Verge.
The company announced the Utah launch on Monday, and Bloomberg had reported the news earlier. The pilot structure means the level of human oversight depends on how many patients have used the service so far, which is worth keeping in mind when weighing claims about fully autonomous prescribing.