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.

Utah’s recent announcement that it was partnering with a health tech startup that will use artificial intelligence to renew drug prescriptions may offer a glimpse of the futuristic version of AI medicine that’s long been foretold by technologists and venture capitalists.

But it’s only possible because of some pre-approved rule breaking — and may prove a broader test of the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to evaluate a new wave of clinical AI products, according to interviews with executives and experts.

In January, Utah regulators said they had signed an agreement with a startup called Doctronic to launch an AI system that will perform a clinical evaluation of patients and, when deemed appropriate, renew some 200 common medications autonomously.

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