Your lab results could soon be explained by AI. CT healthcare system launches pioneering PatientGPT

Hartford Courant – Wednesday, March 25, 2026
By Staff Report

Artificial intelligence could soon be helping you understand lab results, identify medication interactions and more as Hartford HealthCare launches HHC PatientGPT.

According to Hartford HealthCare, the health care system has teamed up with K Health to bring a “24/7 AI bridge” to the clinical care team. It marks a new AI system embedded inside a health care network to answer questions in real time, they said.

“More Americans are turning to consumer AI platforms for medical information. Until now, those educational conversations with AI have taken place outside of the healthcare system. Without access to the user’s private and secure medical information, educational information provided by the AI tool may not be as meaningful to the user,” according to a statement.

HHC PatientGPT is an “AI system with the ability to securely access the user’s medical record,” the statement said. The program will be accessible within the Hartford HealthCare patient portal and app and be available as a beta to a limited number of patients to try.

The tool is designed to “provide personalized education and guidance grounded in each patient’s personal health data, empowering people with clear, trusted answers for basic health questions and a seamless pathway to care –when and if they choose– within one continuous experience,” according to a statement.

Hartford HealthCare said the tool will aid providers in making things more efficient. According to K Health, “HHC PatientGPT is powered by a coordinated system of specialized AI agents embedded within Hartford HealthCare’s secure infrastructure. It provides patients the option to connect directly to Hartford HealthCare clinicians through HHC 24/7 virtual care, or schedule in-person primary-care or specialty appointment. Hartford HealthCare hopes the combination of targeted education and access to telehealth or in-person care will eliminate the “dead end” experience often associated with standalone chatbots.”

“We’re on a mission to be the most consumer centric health system in the country,” said Jeff Flaks, president and CEO of Hartford HealthCare. “So much of healthcare has traditionally been organized around the provider, but it’s clear we must meet people where they are and where they desire to be met. With PatientGPT we are introducing a new tool that supports your health and provides access to a 24/7 care team, while protecting the human relationships at the heart of care.”

“We are at an inflection point in healthcare,” said Allon Bloch, CEO and co-founder of K Health. “Demand is accelerating, and patients are already using AI to navigate their lives. The question isn’t whether AI will shape healthcare, it’s about how we do it in a safe, transparent way, inside a health system that connects to your medical records and your care team. PatientGPT represents that turning point.”

Accessible through a link within Hartford HealthCare patient portal (or app), HHC PatientGPT enables patients to:

• Better understand lab results in plain language
• Ask health-related questions within the context of their medical record
• Identify potential medication interactions
• Access conversation summaries that the user can copy-and-paste as in-basket messages to their provider
• Connect to virtual care or allow the patient to schedule an in-person visit if they choose
• For clinicians, structured summaries of chats are available for review, providing additional context before visits and helping streamline routine informational exchanges. By organizing patient concerns in advance and addressing non-urgent informational needs, PatientGPT enables licensed members of care teams to focus more of their time on diagnosis, decision-making, and direct patient engagement.

HHC PatientGPT will be introduced as a phased rollout, according to a statement, that includes oversight by licensed providers, structured feedback, and quality monitoring.

“HHC PatientGPT does not diagnose, prescribe treatment, or operate autonomously; it will only be available to patients 18 and older in the State of Connecticut and is designed to escalate to human clinicians whenever ambiguity or risk persists, or if a patient chooses to see or communicate directly with a licensed provider,” according to a statement. “This clinical AI system operates within Hartford HealthCare’s HIPAA-compliant infrastructure. Patient health data is not used to train external AI models. All interactions are subject to the same privacy, security, and audit protections that apply to existing electronic medical records.”

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