K Health is a company that uses AI and machine learning to take some of the burden off of primary care physicians by allowing users to look up their symptoms, and then see how doctors diagnose and treat similar people with similar symptoms, for free on its app. Over the past year alone, the company has partnered health systems such as Cedars-Sinai, Hackensack Meridian Health, and Hartford Health.
The company has also previously partnered with the Mayo Clinic and on Tuesday it announced an expansion of that relationship so that the Mayo Clinic will be able to offer K Heath’s AI Physician Mode on its platform, This bringing it to Mayo Clinic Platform’s network of 31 health systems and over 2,500 primary care physicians.
AI Physician Mode consists of two components: a patient-facing Medical Chat and a physician-facing Provider Co-Pilot. Patients complete the Medical Chat either at home or in-office before their appointment, which collects comprehensive intake information. The system then synthesizes this with existing EMR data to create a “perfect chart.”
The Provider Co-Pilot summarizes this information and generates actionable insights including potential diagnoses, suggested care plans, and care gaps, displaying everything to providers within their existing EMR system at the point of care.
“Our AI Physician Mode transforms the primary care experience by automating patient intake and creating comprehensive patient charts before visits begin. This allows providers to have personalized patient information readily available, with actionable insights displayed directly within their existing EMR systems,” Allon Bloch, co-founder and CEO of K Health, told VatorNews.
“By handling administrative tasks and providing diagnostic suggestions, our technology allows physicians to focus more on patient engagement and care delivery, improving the overall quality and efficiency of primary care across their extensive network.”
K Health had previously worked with Mayo Clinic on AI-related studies; this expanded partnership with Mayo Clinic Platform developed through their Solutions Studio program, which is designed to accelerate the development and deployment of digital health solutions.
“Mayo Clinic Platform offers an objective qualification process that evaluates solutions for accuracy, efficacy, and susceptibility to bias, which aligns with our commitment to responsible AI development,” said Bloch.
Founded in 2016, the idea behind K Health is that, instead of doctors taking up their time with patients going through investigations and manually piecing together medical history from their EMR, K’s AI co-pilot takes patients through a personalized chat and then delivers providers a medical chart with patient insights so they can make better diagnoses and treatments.
K Health users first chat with an AI that has been trained on a dataset from billions of anonymized clinical data points, taking into account a user’s gender, age, acute symptoms, and other biomarkers, to accurately show users how other people like them dealt with symptoms and conditions. That can include anything from mental health to back pain, headaches, abdominal pain, chest pain, rashes, fatigue, STDs and bladder infections, among numerous others.
If it is determined that patient does need to speak to a doctor, they then pay for that appointment in one of two ways: either per session, which costs $19, or they can pay a $27 subscription fee, which lasts for three months and also includes unlimited follow-up and remote visits. In addition, the company also offers mental health services, which is separate from its primary care membership; patients pay $19 a month to access this care.
K is available in all 50 states, and K Primary Care, the option to chat with a doctor, is available in 48 states, covering 300 million people.
“AI Physician Mode significantly boosts patient engagement and improves clinical workflows, allowing physicians to focus on delivering high-quality care to patients with complex and multiple health conditions. As a result the ROI driven by AI Physician Mode is massive,” said Bloch.
“Being selected for Mayo Clinic Platform means experts have thoroughly reviewed and approved our technology as accurate, effective, and trustworthy. By bringing the same quality and efficiency we’ve perfected in virtual care to the in-clinic experience, we’re creating a seamless continuum of care that benefits both providers and patients, with more health system partnerships to come.”
