How to disrupt telemedicine with AI

The future of Telemedicine is digital

Medgate is a globally operating Digital Health company that provides services to numerous health insurers in Switzerland operating Europe's largest telemedicine centre.

The doctors and trained professionals working for Medgate provide assistance to thousands of patients every day, and, when appropriate, guide them to the right care provider at the right time.

While approximately half of the patients can be treated using telemedical cares, a visit to the doctor is necessary for the other half.

What if we could detect automatically whether or not a patient would benefit from a teleconsultation, and, when applicable, redirect her directly to the most appropriate care provider?

Our client understood the importance and value behind this idea and the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry with AI. They began their digital journey with IBM in 2016 and selected Open Web Technology as a key strategy and technology partner in 2017.

A mobile app with cognitive capabilities

OWT developed the Medgate Android and iOS apps that enable patient-doctor video consultations (read more here).

In parallel, and in collaboration with IBM, we helped our partner leverage 7.5 million historical medical cases collected for 20 years to build, certify, and bring to market an artificial intelligence solution that automatically triages patients to the right caregiver.

The chatbot-like system takes as input the patient's symptoms. Then, it goes through a Question & Answer phase to gather more data. Ultimately, a recommendation is provided. Patients suffering from conditions treatable remotely (e.g. the Flu) are suggested telemedical cares, those requiring physical attention (e.g. broken feet) are directed to a family doctor, and those in need of immediate help (e.g. heart attack) are urged to call an emergency line.

The machine learning powered symptom checker is live since November 2019. The end result is a fully integrated digital experience that saves time and money for both patients and Medgate

Open Web Technology is grateful to Medgate, IBM, and its team of consultants and technical experts for the trust, the great collaboration, and having made this crazy journey the success it has become!

Iterative journey

• Manage project, roadmap, and collaborate with stakeholders and partners: IT, medical affairs, operations, legal, research, and translators.
• Provide strategical recommendations for technology in-housing and product vision.
• Develop the middleware that handles the conversation and recommendations, and allows arbitrary load to be directed to the telemedicine centres.
• Design operational monitoring plan, KPIs, and dashboard.
• Launch the product on the market and support to comply with CE regulations.

Meet the project team!

From top left to bottom right, thanks to Ivan Girardi (IBM), Anthony Dyson (Medgate), Chiara Marchiori (IBM), Jérémy Subtil (openWT), Douglas Dykeman (IBM), Robin Genolet (OWT), Andrea Giovannini (IBM), Henri Saenz (Medgate) and Daniel Karpati (Medgate).