Time is of the essence for healthcare providers, especially in the middle of the pandemic. Singapore-based Bot MD saves time with an AI-based chatbot that allows doctors to get critical information from their smartphone instead of calling a hospital operator or accessing the intranet. The startup announced today that it has raised a Series A valuation of $ 5 million under the direction of Monk’s Hill Venture.
Other supporters are SeaX, XA Network and SG Innovate as well as angel investors Yoh-Chie Lu, Jean-Luc Butel and Steve Blank. Bot MD was also part of the batch of Y Combinator for summer 2018.
The funds will be used to expand in the Asia Pacific region including Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, and to add new functionality to respond to demand from hospitals and health organizations during COVID-19. Bot MD’s AI assistant currently supports English and plans to release Bahasa Indonesian and Spanish later this year. It is currently used by approximately 13,000 doctors in organizations such as Changi General Hospital, National University Health System, National University Cancer Institute in Singapore, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore General Hospital, Parkway Radiology, and National Kidney Transplant Institute .
Dorothea Koh, co-founder and chief executive officer, told TechCrunch that Bot MD integrates hospital information, usually stored in multiple systems, and makes it easier to access.
Photo credit: Bot MD Without Bot MD, doctors may need to call a hospital operator to find out which staff are on call and get their contact information. If they want information about medication, it means another phone call to the pharmacy. Often times, when updated guidelines and clinical protocols need to be viewed, it is necessary to find a computer connected to the hospital intranet.
“Bot MD has a lot to do with putting the content you need into a single interface that can be browsed 24/7,” said Koh.
For example, during COVID-19, Bot MD introduced a new feature that redirected healthcare providers to a form filled with their information when they type “record temperature” into the chatbot. Many have accessed their company’s intranet twice a day to log their temperature, and Koh said using the form via Bot MD improved compliance significantly.
The time it takes to integrate Bot MD depends on the information systems and the amount of content that needs to be integrated. However, Koh said the proprietary natural language processing chat engine makes training his AI relatively quick. For example, Changi General Hospital, a new customer, was on board in less than 10 days.
Bot MD plans to add new clinical apps to its platform, including those for electronic health records (EMR), billing and scheduling integrations, clinical alerts, and chronic disease monitoring.