The market for AI note-taking devices is exploding in the U.S., with more than $600 million in revenue generated in the sector last year, according to a report by Menlo Ventures. And as startups like Heidi Health and Freed demonstrate, there’s a decent demand for this technology in the medical field, with doctors and clinics seeing the potential for AI assistants that can track patient conversations, surface health records, and ease administrative burdens.
However, these apps are of little use to patients. That’s why Kin Health is building a note-taker that can record doctor visits, parse medical advice, and suggest next steps when needed. To this end, the startup has raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Maveron.
This app is similar to a meeting note-taking tool. When you record a doctor’s visit, you’ll receive an AI summary of the meeting with next steps, and you can share everything with family and friends if you want. You can also note down any questions you would like to ask on your next visit.
Kin Health says it encrypts all patient data and summaries are kept private by default. Because the tool is aimed at patients, it is not HIPAA certified, but it adheres to the same privacy standards, the company said.
The free app was built by doctors Arpan and Amit Parikh, and Kyle Alwyn, who previously built and sold online prescription service HeyDoctor to health platform GoodRx. GoodRx co-founders Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek are founding partners and executive chairman of the company.
“We have a lot of storage cabinets where we can store health data, but we don’t have a way to convert it into a utility that can be used to drive behavior change. Our goal is to create this health graph that can store information from multiple different sources,” Alwyn told TechCrunch by phone.
Kin Health says its summary is provided through several stages of processing. After the visit is transcribed, an algorithm converts the transcript into a clinical narrative and a user-ready summary with action items. The company says it relies on a specialized medical model to power transcription, evaluating and observing output at various stages to ensure answers are accurate.
However, AI in the medical field is met with a degree of caution and concern. Privacy experts and researchers have raised concerns about data security, AI accuracy, consent mechanisms, quality of generated notes, and their effectiveness.
AI note-takers often cannot recognize regional accents and have a hard time transcribing them. Kin Health says it’s working to ensure the tool works with a variety of accents, as well as when you have a bad throat or are wearing a mask.
Dr. Rebecca Mishlis, chief medical information officer and vice president at Massachusetts General Brigham, a Boston medical institution, argues that it’s important for doctors to review notes generated by AI.
“Generative AI creates hallucinations. That’s the nature of technology built on patterns and predictions. That’s why it’s so important for clinicians to review the draft before signing. At the end of the day, the clinician is responsible for the document,” she told TechCrunch via email.
Kin Health currently only displays notes from conversations recorded during consultations, but this year the company said it plans to incorporate data from other medical sources, such as doctors’ own notes, through electronic health record (EHR) systems.
The company says it will make the app free forever and monetize it through referrals to experts, institutes and other services. The startup is moving away from the GoodRx strategy, which makes its core product free and earns commissions by promoting other services.
Natalie Dillion, partner at Maveron, said providers’ tools often expect patients to adjust their treatment behavior. “Kin is built to solve disparate consumer needs. We can move with the consumer between specialists, systems, and providers. We’re not dependent on a single health network or EHR relationship. We’re built to serve the patient, not the facility, which is a huge distribution advantage,” she said.
Town Hall Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Flex Capital, Foundry Square Capital, Pear VC, and The Family Fund also participated in this funding round. Hirsch and Bezdek of GoodRx. Angel investors Jay Desai, Nabeel Krishi, Alex Cohen, and Sahash Patel. More than 30 doctors also invested.
If you buy through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect editorial independence.
Source link
