K Health: An AI-Based Approach to Primary Care
By Rachel Sacks (Venture Fellow 2020–21)
Launched in 2016, K Health was the first startup to employ artificial intelligence in consumer health at the level of primary care. K Health’s app is an AI-driven platform that leverages anonymized health records, accumulated by an Israeli health maintenance organisation (HMO), to create a predictive model. Through communicating with an AI-powered chatbot, users can better understand their mental and physical health by comparing themselves to other individuals with similar characteristics (e.g. age, symptoms, and medical history). Users can choose to either obtain free symptom advice from the chatbot or pay $19 per consultation or $9 per month to chat with a medical professional. By utilizing artificial intelligence, K Health is able to “reduce barriers to quality primary care” and charge “90 percent less than the cost of traditional primary care practices,” according to CEO Allon Bloch. It appears that Bloch is not the only one passionate about K Health’s mission, as highlighted by its recent $48 million Series C round led by 14W and Mangrove Capital Partners.
And K Health’s value-add doesn’t stop there. The app has used its AI technology to offer free, digital COVID-19 treatment while also learning more about the virus based on daily user input. Users are prompted with a “coronavirus assessment” and can uncover real-time data about COVID-19 cases in their area as well as nearby testing centers. Since the onset of the pandemic, K-Health has experienced user growth of 400%. As a digital health solution with substantial network effects, K Health offers differentiated, innovative technology that can be continually applied in (hopefully unlikely…) future health outbreaks and emergencies.
What particularly interests me about K Health’s proposed solution is its forward-thinking model. In a market as saturated as digital health and telemedicine, a key driver of success is the iterability and adaptability of the startup’s solution. While K Health provides a convenient and accessible approach to primary care, it offers a lot more than that — a revolutionary means of harvesting clinical data to better understand diseases or health-related conditions. These insights will not only benefit the users but other third-party companies and the medical community in general.
As unexpected as the COVID-19 pandemic was, it has created a “new normal,” wherein people are increasingly conscious of the possible damage and uncertainty that a large-scale health crisis can cause. It is for this reason that digital health companies like K Health which utilize AI technologies are so crucial to the advancement of healthcare. While obstacles such as lack of internet access and its current limited scope are issues for the startup, they present problems for telemedicine companies in general. K-Health’s differentiated AI-enabled medical service is well-positioned to succeed and sustain growth after the pandemic. While many once-common activities such as visiting coffee shops, attending concerts, and even working in-person remain to be craved, waiting to make doctor’s appointments, exposing oneself to the illnesses of others in waiting rooms, and paying high medical fees are things that I think we would all be happy to leave behind post-pandemic. I am looking forward to continually tracking K Health’s influence in expanding healthcare accessibility and am excited to observe its growth over the next few years.
