MindMeld and Sense.ly Launch Solution to Enable a New Generation of AI-Powered Healthcare Applications

SAN FRANCISCO, June 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- MindMeld, the first platform for building AI-powered voice-driven applications, today announced a new solution in partnership with Sense.ly, the breakthrough "virtual nurse" application that provides proven, personalized patient monitoring and follow-up care. MindMeld and Sense.ly are leveraging the latest advances in artificial intelligence to build customized virtual assistant applications for the healthcare industry. See this video for a demonstration: https://youtu.be/gUfRc_aIntA.

"We created Sense.ly to put an intelligent virtual nurse in the palm of every patient's hand to make healthcare easy and accessible," said Adam Odessky, Chief Executive Officer of Sense.ly. "By complementing physician expertise with advanced machine learning, MindMeld is helping us enable healthcare providers to deliver better care at lower costs."

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. 

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.

The combination of Sense.ly's telemedicine platform and MindMeld's AI allows users to have their own intelligent, interactive virtual nurse. Using Sense.ly's smartphone application, 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.

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."

"Natural interfaces and AI will completely change the way we access information on our smartphone or any connected device," said Eddy Lee, Head of Investments at Fenox VC, which is an investor in both Sense.ly and Expect Labs. "We have great belief in the two teams, and are stoked that they are achieving synergy through this partnership."

About Sense.ly
Sense.ly offers a breakthrough "virtual nurse" patient engagement solution that provides proven, personalized monitoring and follow-up care with a strong focus on patients with chronic diseases. The Sense.ly solution combines innovative avatar-based technology, advanced sensor capabilities, and telemedicine features that generate actionable, real-time data and intelligent analytics, enabling clinicians to make better, timelier care decisions. Sense.ly's solution has won many awards including winning the American Heart Association Health Tech competition, Novartis mHealth Challenge, and Allscripts Open API Challenge. Its customers are some of the most prominent medical institutions in the world including University of California – San Francisco and the National Health Service of the UK. For more information, visit www.sense.ly.

About MindMeld
MindMeld, created by Expect Labs, is the first technology platform that enables companies to build intelligent voice interfaces for any application or device. Over 1500 companies use this service to power next-generation, voice-driven experiences that enable users to quickly find and navigate information in a range of applications. MindMeld's customers and investors include some of largest technology companies in the industry including Google, Samsung, Intel, Telefonica, Liberty Global, IDG as well as some of the largest automobile manufacturers and government agencies. MindMeld has been widely recognized as a leader in the field of voice-driven computing and was named by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the "100 Brilliant Companies" of 2015 and by MIT Technology Review as one of the world's "50 Smartest Companies" of 2014. More information about MindMeld is available at mindmeld.com.

Media Contacts

Margo Mendez-Penate, Spark for Expect Labs
[email protected]

Bayley McDaniel for Sense.ly
[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150623/225235 
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120911/SF71819LOGO

SOURCE Expect Labs