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- Strategic investment from Google and acceptance into Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate program show an increasing understanding of Ubie’s value to patients and healthcare
- Key platform innovations have led to increased user engagement, with a 30% increase in call to action engagement
- Results from two new analyses support Ubie’s AI Symptom Checker’s accuracy and ability to impact both patients health and economic outcomes
NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Ubie, a global healthcare AI platform that guides patients to better interactions with providers and life sciences, is celebrating a number of successes for 2024 in the US market. Highlights of the year include a strategic investment from Google, acceptance into Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate program, partnerships with three key patient advocacy groups, and the doubling of its user base (from 2 to 4 million). Additionally, two new analyses validated the company’s Symptom Checker platform, showing a significant impact on patient life expectancy and economic impact, as well as accuracy that rivals physicians and outperforms competitors symptom checkers.
The healthcare system is difficult to navigate and can often exclude patients from fully participating in their own care. Facing obstacles to care, patients are often left to fend for themselves, researching their symptoms and conditions online, which can result in confusion and lack of action. Other patients, who have limited access to healthcare or are negatively impacted by social determinants of health, may not see a doctor at all.
Ubie is focused on impacting the healthcare system by reaching potential patients at an earlier point in their care journey – before diagnosis. Ubie is a bridge for patients at a time when they don’t know what’s wrong with them, may not have access to a doctor, or don’t feel confident going to a doctor. By providing a highly accurate, medically-validated online AI symptom checker that is free and easily accessible, Ubie is addressing critical gaps in healthcare by empowering patients to become active participants in their own health care.
"We’ve taken a strategic approach to our growth in the US, ensuring that we understand the nuances of not only the unique healthcare system and the journey that patients face when diagnosed with an illness, but also of the cultural diversity, health literacy, and the realities of the barriers to access in healthcare," said Kota Kubo, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Ubie. "We’re proud to have accomplished so much in such a short time, with our work being validated by those who have such an impact in the everyday lives of patients."
Gaining Recognition in Healthcare
Highlighting the growing awareness of Ubie’s proven ability to guide patients and impact healthcare, the company shared two major announcements including industry leaders. In October, Ubie received a strategic investment from Google and was accepted into Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate program, an exclusive program that will help Ubie develop provider facing solutions and use the de-identified data of 3 million Mayo Clinic patients to refine the platform’s accuracy.
Patients in the US have also taken note of Ubie’s abilities, with the Symptom Checker platform now boasting over 4 million users to date in the US, an 85% increase of monthly organic users over last year.
Key Advocacy Partnerships
Part of Ubie’s growing patient reach and increasing awareness and trust with doctors is due to its development of key patient advocacy partnerships, which put Ubie in the hands of patients to help fine-tune its core offerings and AI algorithm, and improve awareness, education and the reach of critical resources for patients when they need it most.
Patient advocacy groups are the first line of resources for patients facing serious illnesses, but patients can’t get the help they need until they themselves know their diagnosis. By partnering with these groups and accelerating patient diagnosis, patients get increased support earlier in their journey when they are facing the most significant hurdles and emotional needs.
Partnerships announced in 2024 include:
- Cushing’s Support and Research Foundation – a long-term collaboration involving a validation study of Symptom Checker by a community of patient advocates to gauge accuracy and provide insights that will lead to better disease prediction.
- The American Kidney Fund – a collaboration aimed at fine tuning Symptom Checker’s AI to accelerate the time to diagnosis for patients with undiagnosed kidney disease to improve outcomes and provide proper education.
- PatientsLikeMe – this partnership integrates Symptom Checker with the PatientsLikeMe platform to engage patients longitudinally with personalized information, support, and resources from the first sign of symptoms through diagnosis and treatment.
Making Patients the Focus
Ubie is becoming a key part of reimagining the healthcare journey. By focusing on early diagnosis and filling the gaps in traditional healthcare support, Ubie empowers patients to take control of their health. The platform prioritizes health equity and diversity, ensuring that everyone has access to the information and resources they need.
Ubie continuously improves accepted language and clarity in its questions to ensure high accuracy, while using plain language and explanations that make the process more accessible. Ubie has also implemented messaging to set expectations around potentially sensitive health topics, and gives users the ability to opt-out for privacy purposes. To further enhance the patient experience, Ubie goes beyond symptom identification by guiding patients to relevant resources and care, such as sharing disease-specific information and facilitating access to medical advice through its "Doctor’s Note" service.
These innovative features have led to increased user engagement and a more positive healthcare experience, with a 30% increase in call to action engagement.
Symptom Checker Validation
Ubie validated its Symptom Checker for both patient impact and accuracy through two separate analyses in 2024. The first, Ubie Symptom Checker: A Clinical Vignette Simulation Study, published earlier this year in medRxiv, underscores Ubie’s efficacy in providing relevant information based on symptoms, making it valuable in speeding diagnosis and care delivery for improved outcomes.
- Symptom Checker was able to identify a patient’s correct diagnosis against the gold standard diagnosis in its top-5 suggestions 63.4% of the time, and in its top-10 suggestions 71.6% of the time.
- Ubie outperformed comparator symptom checkers and compared favorably to the median physician accuracy (72.9%) using the same set of vignettes.
Ubie also unveiled a comprehensive logic model and social impact framework designed to measure and disclose the health and economic outcomes generated by digital health innovation.The framework used the pharmaceutical industry’s standard of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY) to provide a widely-accepted and transparent impact measurement.
- Results support the ability of Ubie’s AI Symptom Checker to deliver early intervention for patients through differential diagnoses to improve outcomes.
- A preliminary assessment of over 1.5 million Ubie users showed that Symptom Checker contributed patient quality-adjusted life years (QALY) by an estimated 27,000 years (from 2021 to 2024) and created approximately $1 billion in economic value.
A Look Ahead
Ubie heads into 2025 with a goal to expand its growing reach to help patients navigate convoluted healthcare journeys to diagnosis, battling misinformation and providing critical insights at a time when a patient is most vulnerable and in need of answers and guidance.
Through its current partnerships, and those to come, Ubie will continue to fine-tune its real time AI, which has been trained on over 50,000 peer-reviewed publications, leverages a panel of more than 50 medical specialists for accuracy, and is connected to more than 1,500 healthcare providers organization for real-world feedback.
About Ubie
Founded in 2017, Ubie empowers individuals and healthcare professionals with the tools they need for better care. Leveraging cutting-edge disease prediction AI, Ubie guides 10+ million patients every month to seek appropriate medical attention through its free online Symptom Checker and equips 1,500+ provider organizations with clinical tools that streamline workflows and support better diagnoses and health outcomes. Trained on medical data, Ubie’s marketing solutions power advanced targeting capabilities and high-performing digital campaigns for 70% of the world’s top life science companies.
Learn more about our vision and work at https://ubiehealth.com/company or try our free Symptom Checker at https://ubiehealth.com/.
CONTACT:
Ryosei Hatakeyama
Ubie, Inc.
Email: [email protected]
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