MindMeld, the first platform for building AI-powered voice-driven apps is partnering with Sense.ly, a virtual nurse platform for patient engagement and chronic disease monitoring to build customized artificial intelligence health apps. MindMeld and Sense.ly are leveraging the latest advances in artificial intelligence to build customized virtual assistant applications for the healthcare industry. MindMeld’s platform leverages innovative AI technology and helps healthcare providers deliver around-the-clock access to medical expertise. Combined with the award-winning Sense.ly solution, the system can automate many of the most common patient services normally delivered by clinicians.



A New Generation of AI-Powered Healthcare Apps

The combination of Sensely’s telemedicine platform and MindMeld’s AI allows users to have their own intelligent, interactive virtual nurse. Using Sense.ly’s smartphone app, a patient can interact with a compassionate nurse avatar using simple voice commands and ask a wide range of health-related questions. MindMeld’s AI technology is used to understand the meaning of the spoken questions and provide answers or relevant medical information. If necessary, the application can connect the patient to a nurse or a doctor via a video visit. Since many common requests can be addressed without requiring a doctor or nurse consultation, this technology promises to reduce costs while maintaining a high quality of care.

In the U.S. alone, $3.8 trillion was spent on healthcare in 2014. Half of that gargantuan total comes from so-called ‘frequent fliers’, who require repeated hospitalization for the same unmanaged chronic conditions. Physicians agree that consistent medical monitoring, alerting, and consultation dramatically reduces costs for this group of high-risk patients. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry simply doesn’t have enough resources to monitor patient health 24 hours a day. Artificial intelligence and machine learning promise to greatly improve the monitoring of patients and ultimately help doctors and nurses provide better and more timely healthcare for all.

With this new solution, a patient using Sense.ly will be able to ask questions such as, “I have ringing in my ears and am feeling dizzy and nauseous. What should I do?” MindMeld will then understand the meaning of the question and determine what the patient might be experiencing. Through advanced language understanding technology, MindMeld can provide detailed information about possible conditions and where to turn to for help.

“Just a few years ago, building an application such as Sense.ly’s was simply not possible with the available technology,” said Tim Tuttle, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Expect Labs, the company behind MindMeld. “With the recent advances in AI and machine learning, a new generation of tools is emerging that can interpret and answer many spoken requests which formerly could only be answered by skilled medical practitioners.”

Last week, Sense.ly raised $2.2 million in a Series A round of funding, with investors including Launchpad Digital Health, Fenox Venture Capital, and TA Ventures.