Utah medical board calls for immediate suspension of state’s AI doctor experiment – statnews.com

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By Mario Aguilar
April 24, 2026
Health Tech Correspondent
Mario Aguilar
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 high-profile experiment with using an artificial intelligence system to renew prescriptions without physician oversight is facing its first major challenge as doctors in the state push back.
Utah’s Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy in January announced an agreement with AI doctor startup Doctronic to launch a chatbot that can conduct a clinical evaluation of a patient and autonomously renew prescriptions for nearly 200 drugs. In a letter published Friday, the Utah Medical Licensing Board said it only learned about the agreement after it had been launched and asked the state to halt the program.
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“Proceeding with this agreement without consulting the Medical Board potentially places Utah citizens at risk and remains a major concern of the board,” they wrote. “It is the strong recommendation of the Utah Medical Licensing Board that this program be immediately suspended pending further discussion.”
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Mario Aguilar
Health Tech Correspondent
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.
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