Ever feel a little off, dare I say sick even, and instead of going to a real educated doctor we let doctor Google do the diagnosis for us. This oftentimes leads to over diagnosis, where every symptom you read about is immediately associated to your condition.
Replacing "Doctor Google"
An interesting Israeli MedTech startup called K Health is attempting to reduce the Google based diagnosis process with a free digital health platform that anonymously asks 21 questions, similar to those from medical physicians, regarding your medical condition. The platform then compares your symptoms with its massive database - with a focus on patients experiencing similar symptoms - then producing results based on true data, rather than just feeding your anxiety like the Google checkup usually does.
K Health’s database relies on over 2 billion different data points that have been collected over the past 20 years by various medical centers and HMOs, pulling from info such as doctors’ notes, lab results, hospitalization reports, prescriptions, and the efficiency of the recommended treatment.
In part of the countries where K Health operates, its platform offers patients direct contact with caring physicians for further treatment, questions, and even to set up the nest appointment. This way, the Israeli startup hopes to put an end to, or at least reduce, the panic-driven “Doctor Google” syndrome, while also providing doctor-patient communication with a telehealth solution, allowing doctors and their patients to adhere to social distancing regulations during COVID reality.
Although operating in a few countries around the world, K Health’s main focus is the massive U.S. health sector, where every meeting with your doctor can drive up the bill to hundreds of dollars for a simple diagnosis or checkup.
This has lead the company to partner with one of the most impactful U.S. medical societies there are - Mayo Clinic, which will focus the collaborated work on improving and accelerating the deployment of virtual diagnosis models. In addition, K Health states that data-backed insight from Mayo’s clinical analysis platform will further confirm K Health’s algorithm’s findings through a unified learning model that will enable Machine-Learning without transferring data.
In addition to its exciting medical diagnosis for the masses collab with Mayo Clinic, K Health also revealed a $42 million Series D funding round. The investment was led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from the Hip-Hop king Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners, Atreides Management, and PICO Venture Partners, in addition to the company’s existing investors.
K Health (formerly known as Kang Health) was founded in 2016 by Ran Shaul, Adam Singolda, Israel Roth, and Allon Bloch. The company is based in NYC with offices in Israel. This is the company’s second funding round this year, after raking in $48 million in February.