Shiv Rao

Much of what inspires people to go to medical school or nursing school is the opportunity—the "privilege," as Dr. Shiv Rao sees it—to serve patients while building strong relationships with them. But the reality of the job often means being consumed with paperwork for hours after the last appointment of the day.
That's why Rao, a practicing cardiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center with an interest in machine learning, founded Abridge, which uses AI to turn doctors' conversations with patients into billable clinical notes that are integrated directly into health records. The tool works by recording a patient's visit (with their consent), automatically transcribing it, and creating a useful summary. 'Abridge unburdens clinicians from the clerical work that crushes their souls, so they can focus on the person in front of them,' says CEO Rao.
Abridge is now used at more than 100 health systems across the U.S., including Kaiser Permanente, Duke Health, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and UChicago Medicine. Rao expects that growth to continue: In February, the company raised $250 million, which it will funnel into research and development. It also started rolling out a product built for nurses at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. The same month, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association concluded that 67% of clinicians using Abridge believed their risk of burnout due to paperwork had decreased, and 77% felt the tool improved patient care.
Rao recalls a rural primary care physician who wrote to the company about her experience with the tool. When she sat down to dinner with her family, her young son asked her: 'Mommy, why aren't you working right now?' The woman explained that she was using Abridge, a tool that allowed her to come home early enough for dinner—and that now, she could do so every night. 'Clinicians across the country can get their life back,' Rao says. 'But they can also hopefully deliver more empathetic care because they're more present and building better relationships.'

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With rising temperatures in North Carolina, hospitals report uptick of snake bites

CARY, N.C. (WNCN) — Hospitals throughout the central North Carolina said they're seeing more patients with snake bites walking through their doors. Raleigh native Anita McLoud went through the whole experience when she was bitten by a copperhead in her backyard. She never imagined she'd find herself calling 911 in the hospital, and with a venomous bite. After checking on her chickens during a night in August, McLoud said she turned around to walk back to her house when she had a startling surprise. 'One of the first two things I remember learning from my mom is how to identify a copperhead and how to identify poison ivy,' McLoud said. 'Those were the things you needed to know going out of the house. 'I was in my backyard,' she said. 'I had not seen a snake there in 23 years that I lived there and I was wearing flip flops.' 'My first thought was it's a stick. Within a split second, I [realized] that was not a stick. Was it a snake? I turned and there he was.' According to McLoud, medical staff measured the swelling near the bite every 30 minutes. While she never needed antivenom, doctors gave her morphine for the pain. She said the swelling, pain, and discoloration lasted around five-six weeks. 'I was fortunate that way,' McLoud said. 'They told me at the time, only 23% of people who got bit had to receive the antivenom.' According to Duke Health officials, hospitals usually see more than 100 snakebite patients per year across the health system, with the number of cases typically peaking in July. Since April, officials said emergency departments at Duke University, Duke Regional Hospital and Raleigh Regional Hospital have treated 22 bites this season, which staff said typically starts in April. Officials at WakeMed said an emergency department reported nine patients since June 1, six just between June 14 and June 17. Last year, they saw an increase from 15 patients treated for bites in June to 40 in July. UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill reported 18 patients from March to mid-June, slightly higher than the same time last year. 'The numbers increase as the weather gets warmer, especially when it's hot and more of us work/play in the yard early in the morning or in the evening—when snakes get more active, too,' staff said in a statement. Talena Chavis of Cary, the owner of NC Snake Catcher has studied snakes for nearly 30 years. She said the summer season typically comes with 8-10 calls a day, often to safely move and relocate snakes. 'I actually don't encourage folks to try to ID snakes themselves because Mother Nature throws curveballs,' Chavis said. 'Even with copperheads, the pattern changes a lot.' North Carolina has six venomous snakes. According to Chavis, the copperhead's bite is rarely fatal. 'Every season, copperheads are our number one snake,' Chavis said. 'To say that we have a surplus or even an overpopulation is not is not off topic.' Chavis believes more encounters have been attributed to more growth and development. The species has also adapted to urban and suburban areas. 'They're not really afraid of loud noises,' she said. 'They don't care about fireworks, blowers, lawnmowers. These guys just don't really care because they're an ambush predator.' According to Chavis, most bites happen during night hours when copperheads are searching for heat and their prey. Most the time, she said people just happen to get in the way. Chavis advises people to be more cautious, aware, and put on boots. 'I firmly believe if people wore their boots in the yard and watched where they put their hands, the number of copperhead bites would be cut in half,' she said. Even after her encounter, McLoud said she now works with the reptiles. 'I've really been enjoying it,' McLoud said. 'I wasn't upset with the snake. He's just doing his 'self-defense' thing. If someone stepped on me, I'd probably react as well.' Duke Health officials also continue to share more information about snakebite safety. If bitten, they said to go to your local hospital—never push off the visit. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Washington Post

2 days ago

• Washington Post

How should D.C. schools fix its chronic absenteeism problem?

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We need to think bigger, use data, build capacity within the community, and implement evidence-based solutions and recommendations to address chronic absence. Our kids deserve it. Catherine Falconer, Baltimore The writer is U.K. Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The June 10 front-page article about chronic absenteeism in D.C. was a troubling read. One statement was particularly startling to me: 'For more than a decade, District leaders have linked school attendance to youth crime, saying tackling one will curb the other.' It is sad enough that school leaders saw the connection between truancy and youth crime without success in tackling it for 10 years. But this connection was identified more than 30 years ago in Byron M. Roth's 1994 book, 'Prescription for Failure: Race Relations in the Age of Social Science.' 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Carl Tobias, Richmond The writer is Williams Chair at the University of Richmond School of Law. The Post's June 7 editorial, 'D.C.'s jail is a disgrace. Still.' astonished me. It recounted the alarming conditions in the D.C. city jail reported by the D.C. auditor, and then appeared to support the upside-down approach to financing a new jail promoted by the mayor: private financing. This, while she pushes a plan to use $1 billion of public money to assist with building a new football stadium. It seems to me logical that housing prisoners should entirely be a public financial and management responsibility. And it seems illogical to provide significant public financial backing to a highly successful business to build a new stadium for a football team. The mayor has got this all backward. The stadium investment should be borne by the individuals and companies that have been profiting immensely from that business for decades and have the capital to spare. Bringing the Commanders back to D.C., with a new stadium where the old RFK Stadium stood, might or might not be a good idea, but asking the public to pay a significant chunk of its cost — while seeking an equivalent private investment for a new prison — is assuredly not. Lee Epstein, Silver Spring

Yahoo

3 days ago

• Yahoo

Here are the 24 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2025

Last year was monumental for the AI industry in the U.S. and beyond. There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch; three companies raised more than one 'mega-round,' and seven companies raised rounds that were $1 billion in size or larger. How will 2025 compare? It's still the first half of the year, but so far it looks like 2024's momentum will continue this year. There have already been multiple billion-dollar rounds this year, and more AI mega-rounds closed in the U.S. in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2024. Here are all the U.S. AI companies that have raised $100 million this year: This piece was updated on April 23 and June 18 to include more deals. This piece has been updated to remove that Abridge is based in Pittsburgh; the company was founded there.