Anthropic expands into healthcare a week after OpenAI launched a similar product

• Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare to expand AI use in regulated medical industries.
• Claude for Healthcare offers HIPAA-ready tools for providers, insurers, and consumers.
• New integrations connect Claude to key medical databases and personal health record platforms.

Anthropic is rolling out a major expansion of its healthcare and life-sciences offerings, as AI companies race to embed large language models more deeply into regulated medical workflows.

The company on Sunday announced Claude for Healthcare, a product that allows healthcare providers, insurers, and consumers to use Claude for medical purposes through HIPAA-ready infrastructure.

The launch builds on Anthropic's earlier release of Claude for Life Sciences, which focused on research and drug discovery, and reflects the company's broader effort to position its AI models as practical tools for regulated industries.

The move also underscores intensifying competition in healthcare AI. OpenAI recently unveiled a rival product, and startups including Abridge and Sword Health have attracted multibillion-dollar valuations as investors pour money into AI tools for medicine.

Anthropic said Claude for Healthcare is designed to reduce administrative work and help both clinicians and patients better understand medical information. The tools are powered by recent improvements to the company's flagship model, Claude Opus 4.5, which Anthropic says performs significantly better than earlier versions on simulated medical and scientific tasks while showing fewer factual errors.

As part of the healthcare expansion, Claude can now connect directly to several industry-standard databases. These include the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Coverage Database, ICD-10 medical coding data, the National Provider Identifier Registry, and PubMed's biomedical research library. Anthropic said these connectors allow Claude to quickly surface relevant information, support prior authorization workflows, and help clinicians and administrators generate reports more efficiently.

The company is also introducing customizable "Agent Skills," including sample tools for streamlining prior authorization requests and assisting developers in building applications using FHIR, the modern standard for exchanging healthcare data between systems.

On the consumer side, Anthropic is rolling out integrations that let US subscribers on its Pro and Max plans give Claude secure access to their personal health records. New connectors include HealthEx and Function Health, with Apple HealthKit and Android Health Connect integrations launching in beta via Claude's mobile apps. Anthropic said data accessed through these integrations isn't stored in Claude's memory or used to train its models.

Anthropic is also expanding Claude's capabilities for life sciences customers, adding connectors to platforms such as Medidata, ClinicalTrials.gov, and bioRxiv. New agent skills support tasks like drafting FDA- and NIH-compliant clinical trial protocols or monitoring trial performance.

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