Kin Health raises $9M to build an AI notetaker for patients
Kin Health raises $9M to build an AI notetaker for patients
Kin Health 融资 900 万美元，旨在打造面向患者的 AI 笔记工具
The market for AI notetaking devices has exploded in the U.S., with the category generating over $600 million in revenue last year, according to a Menlo Ventures report. And as startups like Heidi Health and Freed have shown, there’s decent demand for this tech in healthcare, where doctors and clinics see the potential for an AI assistant that can help them keep track of patient conversations, surface health records, and lower their administrative burdens. 根据 Menlo Ventures 的一份报告，美国 AI 笔记设备市场呈爆发式增长，去年该类别的收入超过了 6 亿美元。正如 Heidi Health 和 Freed 等初创公司所展示的那样，医疗保健领域对这项技术有着相当大的需求。医生和诊所看到了 AI 助手的潜力，它可以帮助他们记录患者对话、调取健康档案并减轻行政负担。
But those apps don’t do much for patients, which is why Kin Health is building a notetaker that can transcribe your visits to doctors, parse medical advice, and surface next steps when required. To that end, the startup has raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Maveron. 但这些应用程序对患者的帮助有限，这就是 Kin Health 致力于开发一款笔记工具的原因。它可以记录你的就医过程、解析医疗建议，并在需要时提供后续步骤。为此，这家初创公司在由 Maveron 领投的种子轮融资中筹集了 900 万美元。
The app is similar to a meeting notetaker: You can record doctor visits, and it will return an AI summary of the meeting, with the next steps, all of which you share with family and friends if you want to. It also lets you write down questions that you might want to ask during your next visit. 该应用类似于会议笔记工具：你可以录制就医过程，它会生成一份 AI 会议摘要，包含后续步骤，如果你愿意，还可以将其分享给家人和朋友。它还允许你记录下下次就诊时可能想问的问题。
Kin Health says it encrypts all patient data and that summaries are kept private by default. The tool is not HIPAA-certified, as it is a patient-facing one, but it adheres to the same privacy standards, the company said. Kin Health 表示，它会对所有患者数据进行加密，且摘要默认保持私密。该公司称，由于该工具是面向患者的，因此并未获得 HIPAA 认证，但它遵循相同的隐私标准。
The free app is built by physicians Arpan and Amit Parikh, along with Kyle Alwyn, who previously built online prescription service HeyDoctor and sold it to health platform GoodRx. Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek, co-founders of GoodRx, are founding partners and executive chairmen at the company. 这款免费应用由医生 Arpan Parikh 和 Amit Parikh，以及 Kyle Alwyn 共同开发。Alwyn 此前曾创立在线处方服务 HeyDoctor 并将其出售给了健康平台 GoodRx。GoodRx 的联合创始人 Doug Hirsch 和 Trevor Bezdek 是该公司的创始合伙人兼执行主席。
“We have a lot of these storage cabinets where our health data can live, but we don’t have a way to convert that into a utility that we can use to drive our behavioral change. Our goal is to create this health graph where we can store your information from multiple different sources,” Alwyn told TechCrunch over a call. “我们有很多存储健康数据的‘柜子’，但我们没有办法将其转化为能够推动我们行为改变的实用工具。我们的目标是创建一个健康图谱，将来自多个不同来源的信息存储在一起，”Alwyn 在接受 TechCrunch 电话采访时说道。
Kin Health says that its summaries are provided after a few stages of processing. After transcribing the visit, an algorithm turns the transcription into a clinical narrative, which gets crunched into a user-facing summary with action items. The company says it is leaning on specialized medical models to power the transcription and that it evaluates and observes outputs at different stages to ensure answers are accurate. Kin Health 表示，其摘要是在经过几个处理阶段后提供的。在转录就诊过程后，算法会将转录内容转化为临床叙述，进而精简为包含行动事项的面向用户的摘要。该公司表示，它依赖专业的医疗模型来支持转录，并在不同阶段评估和观察输出结果，以确保答案准确。
But AI in healthcare is being received with a measure of caution and apprehension. Privacy experts and researchers have raised concerns over data security, accuracy of AI, consent mechanisms, the quality of generated notes, and their effectiveness. AI notetakers also often fail to recognize and struggle to transcribe regional accents. Kin Health says it is working to ensure its tool works with different accents, as well as when someone has a bad throat or is wearing a mask. 然而，AI 在医疗保健领域的应用也伴随着谨慎和担忧。隐私专家和研究人员对数据安全、AI 准确性、同意机制、生成笔记的质量及其有效性提出了质疑。AI 笔记工具也经常无法识别并难以转录地方口音。Kin Health 表示，他们正在努力确保其工具能够适应不同的口音，以及在用户嗓子不适或佩戴口罩时也能正常工作。
Dr. Rebecca Mishuris, chief health information officer and VP at Mass General Brigham, a healthcare organization in Boston, argues it is important for physicians to review any notes generated by AI. “Generative AI will hallucinate; that is the nature of a technology built on patterns and prediction. That is why it is so important for clinicians to review the drafted notes before signing them. At the end of the day, the responsibility for the documentation falls to the clinician,” she told TechCrunch over email. 波士顿医疗机构 Mass General Brigham 的首席健康信息官兼副总裁 Rebecca Mishuris 博士认为，医生审查 AI 生成的任何笔记至关重要。“生成式 AI 会产生幻觉；这是基于模式和预测的技术的本质。这就是为什么临床医生在签署笔记前必须进行审查。归根结底，文档的责任在于临床医生，”她在给 TechCrunch 的电子邮件中写道。
Kin Health currently only shows notes from conversations it records during consultations, but the company said it plans to bring in data from other health sources, including physicians’ own notes through electronic health record (EHR) systems, this year. The company says it will keep the app free of cost forever, and monetize via referrals to services such as specialists and labs. The startup is taking a leaf from GoodRx’s playbook, which also keeps the core product free and earns commissions by referring other services. Kin Health 目前仅显示其在咨询期间录制的对话笔记，但该公司表示，计划在今年引入其他健康来源的数据，包括通过电子健康记录 (EHR) 系统获取的医生笔记。该公司表示，将永久免费提供该应用，并通过向专科医生和实验室等服务进行转诊来获利。这家初创公司借鉴了 GoodRx 的模式，即保持核心产品免费，通过推荐其他服务赚取佣金。
Natalie Dillon, a partner at Maveron, said healthcare provider-side tools often expect patients to coordinate their own treatment actions. “Kin is built to solve an entirely different consumer need: it can travel with them between specialists, systems, and providers. It’s not beholden to any single health network or EHR relationship. It’s built to serve the patient, not the institution, and that’s a massive distribution advantage,” she said. Maveron 的合伙人 Natalie Dillon 表示，医疗服务提供方侧的工具通常期望患者自己协调治疗行动。“Kin 的构建是为了解决完全不同的消费者需求：它可以伴随患者在不同的专科医生、系统和医疗机构之间流动。它不依附于任何单一的医疗网络或 EHR 关系。它是为患者而非机构服务的，这是一种巨大的分发优势，”她说。
The funding round also saw participation from Town Hall Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Flex Capital, Foundry Square Capital, Pear VC, and The Family Fund. GoodRx’s Hirsch and Bezdek; angel investors Jay Desai, Nabeel Quryshi, Alex Cohen, and Saharsh Patel; and more than 30 physicians also invested. 参与本轮融资的还有 Town Hall Ventures、Eniac Ventures、Flex Capital、Foundry Square Capital、Pear VC 和 The Family Fund。GoodRx 的 Hirsch 和 Bezdek，天使投资人 Jay Desai、Nabeel Quryshi、Alex Cohen 和 Saharsh Patel，以及 30 多位医生也参与了投资。