BOSTON, Aug. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Buoy Health (www.buoyhealth.com), a health technology company that develops digital tools to help people from the moment they get sick start their care on the right foot, today announced that it has named Boston Children's Hospital, the leading children's hospital in the United States, its first innovation partner. As part of the multi-pronged strategic partnership, Boston Children's hospital will integrate Buoy's advanced AI into its website and will work side-by-side with the health-tech startup to provide input on the product's future enhancements and developments.

"Every day, we see thousands of parents come to Buoy who are unsure of where to go or what to do next when their kids are sick," said Dr. Andrew Le, CEO of Buoy Health. "By combining our AI technology with the cutting edge pediatric knowledge of Boston Children's hospital, we will improve our ability to deliver the best possible healthcare advice to parents and get their kids to the right care at the right time. We are proud to be working with this world-class institution to further our mission of building technology with heart for the health of every person."

As Buoy's first innovation partner, Boston Children's hospital will aid Buoy in improving its pediatric capabilities.  Currently, parents concerned about their children's symptoms gain advice from Buoy by visiting its home page, www.buoyhealth.com. Yet, now, by being placed on the Boston Children hospital's website, Buoy will now be able to naturally train its advanced machine learning on a more diverse set of parents. 

It will also help parents identify and better understand the right course of action against simple symptoms like fever, cough, headache, rash, vomiting, fatigue or shortness of breath and if those symptoms warrant a visit to the doctor or the hospital and or if they could be better and more quickly treated by over the counter medication.

"Deep pediatric expertise is concentrated in relatively few places - yet kids are cared for around the world.  Digital tools like Buoy allow Boston Children's to share our pediatric expertise globally - making it accessible right at people's fingertips and helping to make more informed decisions," said Jean Mixer, Vice President of Digital Health at Boston Children's Hospital.

The partnership with Boston Children's hospital comes at a time when the healthcare industry has put an increased importance on how partners can work together to find new ways to bend the cost curve.  With the industry reporting that up to 56 percent of ER visits could have been treated elsewhere, the two organizations will look to guide parents via AI-powered triage to the right care setting to make engagement with the healthcare system more efficient. They will also save patients money by mitigating unwarranted hospital and doctor visits.

Rather than visiting the ER for symptoms stemming from a common cold, like cough, stomach ache, fever, runny nose, and congestion, Buoy has actively helped worried patients reduce triage levels significantly. According to a recent analysis, of those people who came to Buoy who intended to go to the ER, 72 percent decided to do something less severe and of those people who thought they needed to visit urgent care, 60 percent decided they now had a better course of action. The company also found that every time someone uses Buoy, they save $32 dollars in the system.

Since Buoy's public launch, Buoy has captured the attention of leading providers, hospitals, payer organizations and venture capitalists. In the past month alone, the company has experienced rapid growth and currently sees over 4 million consumers a month. With tens of millions of people getting their healthcare online, Buoy is being positioned by many as the tool that will help optimize care, reduce costs and best serve patient populations around the globe.

For more information about Buoy, its innovation program and its robust partnership with Boston Children's Hospital, please visit www.buoyhealth.com

About Buoy Health
Buoy Health is a health technology company that develops digital tools to help people from the moment they get sick start their care on the right foot. Formed at the Harvard Innovation Laboratory in Boston MA, Buoy Health's team of doctors, product designers, and software engineers developed its smart symptom checker, Buoy, in direct response to the downward spiral we've all faced when we attempt to self-diagnose our symptoms online. The technology behind Buoy leverages artificial intelligence — powered by advanced machine learning and proprietary granular data — to resemble an exchange you would have with your favorite doctor — to provide consumers with a real-time, accurate analysis of their symptoms and to help them easily and quickly embark on the right path to getting better. Buoy Health is based in Boston and was founded in 2014.  For more information, please visit www.buoyhealth.com.   

About Boston Children's Hospital
Boston Children's Hospital, the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center. Its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. Today, more than 3,000 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 members of the National Academy of Medicine and 11 Howard Hughes Medical Investigators comprise Boston Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Boston Children's is now a 415-bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care. For more, visit our Vector and Thriving blogs and follow us on social media @BostonChildrens, @BCH_Innovation, Facebook and YouTube.

SOURCE Buoy Health

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