Mario Aguilar covers technology in health care, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, wearable devices, telehealth, and digital therapeutics. His stories explore how tech is changing the practice of health care and the business and policy challenges to realizing tech’s promise. He’s also the co-author of the free, twice weekly STAT Health Tech newsletter. You can reach Mario on Signal at mariojoze.13.

Primary care is facing a staffing crisis, and to many providers, the solution is to free up time by finding ways to automate triage, diagnosis, prescribing, clinical notes, and more. 

A startup called Altitude is taking a different approach: It wants to use artificial intelligence to supercharge nurse practitioners, a growing workforce that is taking more responsibility for care. The company on Tuesday announced that it’s raised $5.4 million for its technology, which aims to improve the skills of these clinicians so they are better equipped to handle a wider spectrum of patients. 

In the short term, Altitude will use the new funding, which was led by investment company Lerer Hippeau, to develop its technology and expand beyond the six practices that are its first customers. In the long term, Altitude hopes it can be a broad platform for improving clinician and practice performance with the help of AI.

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