mHealth Spot had a chance to interview Medivizor’s CEO Tal Givoly and ask him few questions about his business.
Mr. Givoly has over 25 years of systems and software development experience, and has held a number of management positions at Amdocs, XACCT, MIS and other companies. He has a proven track record in “realizing visions,” both in startups from inception and in multinational corporations.
Here’s how that interview went:
How would you pitch Medivizor? Which problem(s) does it solve?
When people become sick with a serious or chronic illness such as cancer or diabetes, someone becomes what we call a “chronic web researcher”. They start seeking everything and anything that might help themselves or their loved one. However, this process today is broken. Why? Well, they head out to Dr. Google and end up with millions of results. They don’t know what they can trust, what’s current, what’s not a quack or primarily trying to sell them something, they certainly don’t know what’s relevant to them. And, if they do further research, soon they are confronted with the barrier of their own knowledge as most of the cutting-edge scientific material is written for scientists. Not mere mortals. Medivizor fixes this problem by providing a state of the art of science for YOU followed by updates as science evolves. All this in 10th grade English explained and interpreted in a way that makes it relatively easy to understand and discuss with your medical team.
How Medivizor does its magic?
Behind the scenes of Medivizor there’s a combination of patent-pending technology, medical expertise, and the wisdom of the crowd that power the site and service. This technology goes well beyond keyword-based search by semantically matching information to people profiles. The system establishes a profile for every individual using the service, whether the patient, the caregiver, or a physician enters the profile. The system begins with clinically relevant, best evidence of data from the most reputable sources and ends up with succinct and understandable summaries that people can understand.
What sets you apart from competing solutions?
Well, thus far, health information and patient education is “generic”. Basically, it is material brought online for general consumption and not tailored to individuals. It is overwhelming in quantity and ultimately up to the reader to discern what applies to them, what they can trust, what’s current, etc. Medivizor is really the first company to make it personal. That is, rather than most of the results not applying to you – with Medivizor, nearly all the results do apply to you. Also, rather than patients, caregivers, or doctors searching for the information themselves, we provide it straight to their inbox (avoiding the need to search) just the information personally relevant to the individual. Also, we’re unique in the breadth of information: It’s not just one type of information such as clinical trials. We deliver cutting-edge research, clinical trials, guidelines, lifestyle tips, community resources, and more. We also continue then to keep you abreast of all the latest developments, affording the peace of mind that we got you covered. To best of our knowledge, no other product, service, or tool does any of these, let alone all of them. Also, our solution is rather unique in that it infuses the wisdom of the crowd – the actions and reactions of the users, into the result of the service itself.
Can you share some numbers? How many users do you have?
We have several thousands of users from over 50 different countries, however, since the service is currently only available in English, and only supporting a limited number of important medical conditions, these are early days and we’re still growing.
Medivizor is free, but on your website it is stated that a paid option will be launched in the future? Can you tell us more about it?
We intend to keep the basic service free. We believe we can generate revenue to sustain and grow the business without necessarily making this extremely valuable service a paid service. We may, over time, add premium services for the patients/caregivers, which will be optional. An example of a premium service might be a review by a doctor or a telemedicine appointment or some other value add we might provide.
Aside from the premium services, where else do you see Medivizor going?
In the future we intend to expand the list of supported medical conditions and continue to attract new subscribers. Since part of what Medivizor work is that it is powered by the wisdom of the crowd, the more people use our service, the better the service becomes to all. We anticipate our main revenue would be through referrals or licensing to third parties and medical institutions – all this without compromising privacy of individuals.
Where do you see the mHealth industry going?
The piece of technology people are most connected to these days is their smartphone. This is a nearly limitless platform for innovation, especially when coupled with web and cloud based services. We have barely scratched the surface of what we will see. It’s going to be very bright indeed. The smartphone + “” + cloud will become a very powerful platform for innovation.
Medivizor is a global platform for health information and patient education. It has raised seed capital of over $1M from investors and its founders. The company’s leadership is based in New York and Israel and team members and contributors are worldwide.