Luma Health Puts AI Agents on Procedure Prep With 95% Patient Response

Good morning, HealthTech insiders. Procedure prep has always been a phone tree problem. Nurses call, leave messages, call again, and walk the same patient through the same prep steps while a clinic schedule hangs on whether someone answered. On November 5, Luma Health launched Agent Launchpad, putting AI agents on those multistep prep journeys and reporting 95% patient response rates at early sites.

The same week, Ellipsis Health said it is buying Kouper Health so its Sage voice agent can work inside EHR care maps, and GE HealthCare put lung-scan guidance and aortic stenosis assessment AI onto its Vscan Air handheld ultrasound. Today's Signal is about closing the gap between the patient who needs a next step and the clinician who only has time for the ones that truly need a human.

In today's Signal:

• Luma Health launches Agent Launchpad for multistep procedure prep, with 95% average patient response and 20+ minutes saved per patient for periop nurses at early sites.

• Ellipsis Health acquires Kouper Health to combine Sage, its emotionally intelligent AI care manager, with Kouper's EHR integrations and longitudinal patient maps.

• GE HealthCare adds Lung Guidance and AutoAS to Vscan Air, both FDA 510(k) cleared and CE marked, for point-of-care lung and aortic stenosis assessment.

• Plus: Helium Health wins Google.org backing for maternal AI in Nigeria, movement acquires dacadoo IP, and Siggy raises $6M for clinician-supervised mental health care.

In partnership with

Sales Owns Retention, Not Just Closed Deals

November 19th, 11am ET / 8am PT.

Pebl’s Chief Business Officer, Dutta Satadip, joins The GTM Garage to show how Pebl merged Operations and GTM under one leader, and how it aligned goals and incentives across the customer lifecycle.

You’ll also see how Pebl uses AI across that lifecycle and the stack behind prospecting, pipeline, and handoff to onboarding.

15 min conversation. 15 min open Q&A. For Seed to Series A teams.

Request Your Spot

HOSPITAL OPS
1. Luma Health Puts AI Agents on Procedure Prep With 95% Patient Response

On November 5, Luma Health launched Agent Launchpad, an orchestrator that runs AI agents across multistep patient workflows. The first agents prepare patients for procedures and check on them afterward, calling or texting on each health system's protocol and escalating anything clinical to a nurse.

The details:

• Early colonoscopy prep deployments at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and Mile Bluff Medical Center show a 95% average patient response rate, with 70% responding within the first day of outreach. Periop nurses saved more than 20 minutes of coordination per patient on average. At Mile Bluff, 50% of patients were fully prepared with no staff phone calls.

• Fall 2026 templates cover colonoscopy prep and follow-up, plus prep for knee replacement, cataract surgery, bariatric surgery, endoscopy, and pain management guidance. Agents answer routine questions, track readiness, and hand clinical questions to staff with full conversation context.

• Luma is co-founded by Adnan Iqbal (CEO), Aditya Bansod (President) and Tashfeen Ekram, MD (Chief Medical Officer). Paige Anderson, Assistant Clinical Service Manager at UAMS, and Tamara Coughlin, Director of Surgery at Mile Bluff, are quoted on the early results. Luma says a winter update will let agents read a procedure referral, schedule it, and enroll the patient in prep outreach.

The Signal: The bottleneck in procedure throughput is often not the OR. It is the prep phone tree. An agent that can run a health system's own protocol, switch from call to text, and escalate only when needed turns periop nursing time back toward clinical judgment. The next test is whether response rates hold when the workflow moves from colonoscopy into higher-stakes surgical prep.

CLINICAL AI
2. Ellipsis Health Buys Kouper to Wire AI Care Calls Into the EHR

On November 5, Ellipsis Health announced it has acquired Kouper Health. The deal pairs Sage, Ellipsis's emotionally intelligent AI care manager that works by phone and text, with Kouper's native EHR integrations and longitudinal patient maps built from emergency, inpatient and urgent care data.

The details:

• Sage handles care-management enrollment, clinical assessments, medication adherence and post-discharge follow-up. Kouper embeds AI agents into health-system workflows and builds a patient history that can follow people after hospital-based events. Ellipsis says the combined stack is meant to match patients with clinicians and book visits inside the record.

• Mainul Mondal, founder and CEO of Ellipsis Health, said Kouper brings "critical infrastructure" for making AI work inside health systems without asking clinicians to do more. Salman Ali, co-founder and CEO of Kouper Health, said the combined business aims to coordinate care over time beyond a single appointment or discharge. Kouper's team is joining Ellipsis; both brands continue serving existing customers while a combined roadmap is built.

• Ellipsis reports deployments across seven of the top 20 U.S. health plans, plus academic medical centers and IDNs, and previously raised a $45 million Series A in 2025 led by Salesforce, Khosla Ventures and CVS Health Ventures. Kouper emerged from stealth in May 2025 with $10 million from General Catalyst, 25Madison and CVS Health Ventures. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The Signal: Voice AI that can call patients is no longer the scarce piece. Context is. Buying the EHR map and the longitudinal view is a bet that the winners in care management AI will be the ones that can act inside the record, not just talk beside it. Watch whether booking and care-plan updates actually land in production EHRs without creating a second inbox for nurses.

MEDTECH
3. GE HealthCare Puts Lung Guidance and AutoAS on Vscan Air

On November 3, GE HealthCare announced two new AI-assisted capabilities for its Vscan Air handheld ultrasound: Lung Guidance for consistent lung image acquisition, and AutoAS for an automated visual estimate of moderate-to-severe aortic stenosis. Both are FDA 510(k) cleared and CE marked.

The details:

• Lung Guidance walks clinicians through the standard 8-zone lung protocol with real-time landmark detection (pleural line, A-lines, rib shadows, diaphragm and abdomen), AutoCapture, B-line detection and scoring. In company validation, non-expert users acquired diagnostic-quality exams 95.2% of the time versus 96.8% for experts.

• AutoAS analyzes at least two compatible 2D cardiac views on Vscan Air SL and returns an estimate of whether findings suggest moderate-to-severe aortic stenosis, plus a confidence score. GE positions it as an aid when formal echocardiography may be delayed, not as a standalone diagnosis.

• Karley Yoder, CEO of Ultrasound Solutions, Advanced Imaging Solutions at GE HealthCare, framed the launch around shortness of breath that "rarely announces if it's coming from the heart, the lungs, or both." Existing Vscan Air customers with a valid Innovation Package are expected to receive the updates by the end of November 2026.

The Signal: Handheld ultrasound is moving from a picture-taking device to a guided cardiopulmonary workup at the bedside. Closing the expert gap on lung windows and flagging possible severe AS earlier changes who can start the next step of care. The open question is how often AutoAS prompts a formal echo that would have been delayed, and how often it adds false alarms.

👀 WHAT WE'RE WATCHING NEXT

1. Agent Launchpad beyond colonoscopy: Luma's early numbers are from colonoscopy prep at two sites. We're watching published results as knee, cataract, bariatric and endoscopy templates go live, and whether the winter referral-to-schedule agent ships on time.

2. Ellipsis plus Kouper in production EHRs: We're watching whether Sage can book visits and update care plans inside live EHR workflows at named health systems, and how existing Kouper customers at LifePoint, Henry Ford Mosaic and Ascension Saint Thomas are transitioned.

3. Vscan Air Innovation Package rollout: Existing customers with a valid Innovation Package are expected to get Lung Guidance and AutoAS by the end of November 2026. We're watching uptake, published real-world AS referral rates, and whether competitors answer with similar cardiopulmonary suites.

💰 FOLLOW THE MONEY

The deals:

• Ellipsis Health: Acquired Kouper Health to bring Sage, its AI care manager, into EHR-native workflows and longitudinal patient maps. Terms were not disclosed.

• Onvaro: Formed through the combination of Sapphiros and binx health, with fresh backing from KKR, Hildred and EQT Life Sciences to build a connected point-of-need diagnostics platform.

• Siggy: Raised $6M pre-seed led by Village Global for clinician-supervised mental health care with AI check-ins between visits.

• JawBuddy: Closed an €818,000 pre-seed led by HALBZEIT for a Class I MDR digital therapy app for jaw pain, bruxism and CMD.

• Helium Health: Won Google.org Impact Challenge backing as part of a $30M cohort to support maternal AI deployment in Nigeria.

The pattern: Capital is moving toward companies that own workflow, not just conversation. Investors and strategics are backing tools that complete a task inside a protocol, a health record or a regulated device, whether that means coordinating care inside the EHR, linking a diagnostic result to follow-up, or guiding patients between visits.

📆 UPCOMING HEALTHTECH EVENTS

• RSNA 2026: November 29 to December 3, 2026 · McCormick Place, Chicago, IL

  The largest radiology meeting of the year, where AI for imaging, handheld ultrasound and workflow tools get stress-tested by the people who buy and deploy them.

• GIANT Health 2026: December 7 to 8, 2026 · Business Design Centre, London, UK

  London's digital health and DTx gathering, useful for European reimbursement and digital therapeutics conversations heading into 2027.

• HIMSS27 Global Health Conference & Exhibition: April 5 to 8, 2027 · McCormick Place, Chicago, IL

  The main U.S. health IT conference for operational AI, EHR workflows and enterprise HealthTech buying.

🛠️ Trending HealthTech AI Tools

• Health iPASS AI: Launched November 5, enabling patients to check balances and make payments via voice, text or web chat, with support for connected AI agents.

• Welldoc Cares: Launched November 2, extending AI-powered care to early-stage dementia support, with consent-based caregiver access.

• Hippocratic AI Polaris 6 Ultra: Unveiled November 2, introducing faster clinical AI models, enhanced speech capabilities and new safety features across four pricing tiers.

🛠️ Trending HealthTech AI Startups

• Siggy: Raised $6M in pre-seed funding led by Village Global on November 5 to expand AI-assisted mental healthcare, combining daily check-ins, wearable data and clinician supervision. Accepts commercial insurance across all 50 U.S. states.

• JawBuddy: Secured €818K in pre-seed funding on November 4 for its smartphone-based digital therapy app targeting jaw pain, bruxism and CMD. A 130-patient clinical trial begins in December.

• Onvaro: Formed November 4 through the merger of Sapphiros and binx health, backed by KKR, Hildred and EQT Life Sciences. Focuses on point-of-care diagnostics, building on binx's FDA-cleared platform with over 1,000 installed instruments.

DECISION INTELLIGENCE

Highlights: Deep Dives & Industry Reports

1. The Prep Phone Tree Is Breaking: What Luma's Agent Launchpad Means for Perioperative Throughput. How multistep procedure prep became the hidden OR capacity constraint, what UAMS and Mile Bluff's early numbers actually show, and which workflows are next.

2. Voice Is Not Enough: Why Ellipsis Bought Kouper's EHR Map. The shift from emotionally intelligent outreach to longitudinal care context, and what it takes for an AI agent to book the next visit inside a live record.

3. Cardiopulmonary at the Bedside: GE HealthCare's Bet on Guided Handheld Ultrasound. Why lung guidance and AutoAS together change who can start a workup for shortness of breath, and where the evidence still has to catch up.

That's it for today!

Three stories, one pattern. Luma is putting agents on the prep calls that stall ORs. Ellipsis is buying the EHR map so its voice agent can finish the next step. GE HealthCare is putting guided lung and valve assessment into a handheld probe. In each case, the scarce resource is not another model. It is reliable handoff into a protocol, a chart or a clinical decision.

If AI can prep the patient, call them after discharge and help a non-expert start the cardiopulmonary workup, what part of the care journey are you still treating as a phone tree?

See you tomorrow,

Dr. Dereck Mush, MD, MBA

The HealthTech Signal is independently funded. Sponsorships help us invest in better reporting, research, and a stronger newsletter for our readers. Want to reach HealthTech founders & executives while supporting the Signal? Get in touch.

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.