UPMC Enterprises portfolio company uses machine learning to bring context and meaning to medical conversations
Abridge, a service that helps people understand the details of their medical care and follow through on doctors’ advice, announced it has raised $15 million across Seed and Series A rounds.
The UPMC Enterprises portfolio company, which has helped 50,000 people with an app that records and annotates medical conversations, was founded in 2018 by Shiv Rao, MD, who serves as CEO, and Sandeep Konam, who serves as Chief Technology Officer.
Led by UPMC and Union Square Ventures, the $15 million in funding to date includes investments from Bessemer Venture Partners, Pillar, KdT Ventures, Esther Dyson, Aneesh Chopra, and Zen Chu.
The Abridge app uses machine learning technology, brings context and meaning to people’s health by deciphering information-dense medical conversations. The system knows more than 660,000 unique terms and provides 400,000 total definitions to users. And the app can be used for any type of medical appointment, from routine annual exams to urgent care appointments to specialist conversations.
“We’re creating this index of sorts of important medical moments,” Dr. Rao told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Rather than forcing patients to “duct tape together an understanding … we help people capture the details of their care so they can follow through on their doctor’s recommendations and have peace of mind.”
Nearly two-thirds of patients surveyed by Abridge forgot more than 40 percent of the conversations they’ve had with their doctors, according to Forbes magazine. “It’s helping them understand the details of their health from the high-level care plan down to the details of diagnoses, procedures, or medications that are discussed,” Rao told the magazine. Patients can also share the transcripts with caregivers or family members or other clinicians.
The new capital will be used to grow the company’s team in the areas of engineering and product development. It will also go toward research and continued improvement of the company’s machine-learning technology and product, Konam told Crunchbase News.
In addition to the investment by UPMC, Abridge and UPMC partnered to apply the company’s patient-friendly technology to some telehealth visits at UPMC during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Learn more about Abridge and download the app from the App Store and Google Play Store.
