BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Buoy Health,an AI health assistant that helps people from the moment they get sick start their care on the right foot, today announced they were awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Challenge Award for Patient Health Education at last month’s Health 2.0 Conference, held in Santa Clara, California. The award was the result of a year-long contest that asked companies to submit health-focused technologies incorporating AI. After being assessed against 250 competitors and advancing through multiple evaluation rounds, Buoy Health was chosen as one of three finalists. During a final live pitching session at the conference, the competition’s judges determined Buoy Health’s AI-powered chatbot technology to have the most impact, potential for adoption, creativity, scalability and design intuitiveness.
“We are honored to have received the AI Challenge Award from such a prestigious institution as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Their recognition of Buoy Health’s AI health assistant as both a benefits tool for employers and a more helpful alternative for consumers that are prone to Googling their symptoms has emboldened us as we continue towards our goal of improving the patient journey,” said Dr. Andrew Le, CEO of Buoy Health. “Buoy was designed using real world data points based on trusted medical literature and guides patients to care by asking questions, just like a real doctor would. After a consumer answers questions for 2 to 3 minutes, we narrow the possible diagnoses and, through our employer, payer, and provider partners, show exactly what services exist for that particular ailment.”
In 2018 Buoy Health announced a strategic partnership with CVS Health. This collaboration leverages Buoy’s AI health assistant to help patients not only gain a more accurate assessment of what is wrong, but helps them get better faster by providing them with easy access to care at a nearby MinuteClinic when appropriate. While this venture was focused on connecting patients to care, Buoy’s next partnership was fixated on expertise. Additionally, in 2018 the company announced a new learning partnership with Boston Children’s Hospital in which it will integrate Buoy Health’s AI into its website to improve its pediatric knowledge. Doctors from the Boston health center will also evaluate its algorithms to further support Buoy’s goal of helping thousands of parents better triage their children to the right care setting.
Froedtert Health, a partner of Buoy Health since November 2017, reports success with both aiding patients and reducing inaccurate triage. “Buoy Health has been a great aid to our community members in determining what may be ailing them and in many cases reducing the acuity level of what is recommended,” said Michael Anderes, President at Inception Health and Chief Innovation and Digital Officer for Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, based in Milwaukee. “Their AI technology not only helps people figure out what may be the cause of their symptoms past just traditional web search, but more importantly, helps them determine what a good next step is.”
About Buoy Health
Buoy Health is a health technology company that develops digital tools to help people from the moment they get sick start their care on the right foot. Formed at the Harvard Innovation Laboratory in Boston, MA, Buoy Health’s team of doctors, product designers, and software engineers developed its smart symptom checker, Buoy, in direct response to the downward spiral we’ve all faced when we attempt to self-diagnose our symptoms online. The technology behind Buoy leverages artificial intelligence — powered by advanced machine learning and proprietary granular data — to resemble an exchange you would have with your favorite doctor — to provide consumers with a real-time, accurate analysis of their symptoms and to help them easily and quickly embark on the right path to getting better. Buoy Health is based in Boston and was founded in 2014. For more information, please visit www.buoyhealth.com or follow them on LinkedIn or Twitter.
