Pain management startup Sword Health on Tuesday announced a brand new artificial intelligence solution called Phoenix that can enable patients to receive guidance over the phone during virtual physical therapy sessions.
Founded in 2015, Sword offers digital tools that help patients manage their pain from home and avoid other treatments like opioids and surgery. The company has used AI in its products since its launch, but CEO Virgílio Bento told CNBC that Phoenix offers users a more human experience.
Phoenix is designed to mimic the work of a care specialist. Bento said patients should feel like they’ve a physical therapist of their home. Patients can talk on to Phoenix about how they’re feeling, and the brand new “specialist” can respond in real time, provide feedback and adjust the issue level and length of the session.
Sword patients take part in sessions using an organization tablet that may track their movements. Bento said Phoenix monitors their progress and, after each session, summarizes their performance data and sends it to one in every of Sword's human clinicians for review.
Bento said that Sword's AI is currently able to investigate movement and supply easy feedback, but Phoenix is more conversational. Phoenix's ability to investigate patient data and generate recommendations also helps the corporate's doctors work more efficiently, Bento added.
Phoenix suggests changes to the patient for the following session and sends a follow-up message in regards to the accomplished session. Bento said a human doctor decides whether to just accept, reject or edit those recommendations. Sword's doctors have the authority over which exercises are appropriate for a patient, so Phoenix doesn't make decisions independently.
“This is health care, so you always need final approval,” Bento said in an interview. “We have strong guardrails in place about the way we do things.”
Patients can enroll for Sword whether it is supported by their employer or medical health insurance company. Sword has already conducted greater than 3 million AI-powered sessions with patients, in keeping with a press release Tuesday. Bento said the corporate has focused on business customers but is keen to make its solutions available to everyone.
Sword also announced Tuesday that it raised $100 million in a secondary sale to supply liquidity for current and former employees and early investors. Bento said the corporate expects to be profitable this yr but raised one other $30 million in a primary sale to update its valuation.
The company has raised a complete of $340 million and is valued at $3 billion, the statement said. At the top of 2021, the worth was $2 billion.
Sword said a combination of recent and existing investors participated within the round, a few of whom asked to not be identified. Venture capital firms including Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund and General Catalyst have previously invested in the corporate.
Sword has tested Phoenix with some patients using its digital physical therapy product, Thrive. Bento said the corporate will roll it out to more patients in the approaching months inside Thrive and in its other offerings, including its pelvic health solution called Bloom.
image credit : www.cnbc.com