After six years in the making, Ada Digital Health — a London and Berlin-based health tech startup — is launching its AI-powered doctor offering in the UK.
The company’s product is dubbed the “personal health companion and telemedicine app,” designed to help users work out what symptoms they have and offer them information on what might be the cause. If needed, a follow up remote consultation with a real doctor will be suggested.
According to Ada’s two founders — CEO Daniel Nathrath and Chief Medical Officer Dr Claire Novorol — the app started as a decision support tool for doctors, but later on they decided to pivot and offer the expertise collected to the general audience. All of the information used to create the original app was used in this, consumer-facing one to help up see the doctor as less often as possible. This is something both insurance companies and government bodies (NHS in the UK) love to hear, and we could see them suggesting patients to play with Ada before visiting an actual doctor (while saving taxpayer’s money along the way).
“Ada has been trained over several years using real world cases, and the platform is powered by a sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) engine combined with an extensive medical knowledge base covering many thousands of conditions, symptoms and findings,” the company says. “In every assessment, Ada takes all of a patient’s information into consideration, including past medical history, symptoms, risk factors and more. Through machine learning and multiple closed feedback loops, Ada continues to grow more intelligent, putting Ada ahead of anyone else in the market.”
No matter how smart, Ada won’t make doctors obsolete — it just wants to make life easier for everyone, providing on-the-go pre-screening of patients to make job easier for physicians. At the same time, patients get a quick answer what could be wrong with them and should they be worried or not.
Money-wise, Ada has scored an EU grant, and is apparently backed by unnamed private individuals.