Israeli Voice Tech Startup Wins Henry Ford Health System AI Challenge

Israeli health startup Healthymize won US hospital Henry Ford Health System’s “Increasing Patient and Caregiver Engagement to Reduce Readmission” Israel challenge.  This is the US healthcare provider’s second-annual artificial intelligence for Israeli companies.

Healthymize develops personalized, AI-based voice monitoring technology that turns smart devices into remote patient monitoring devices for voice-affecting diseases such as asthma and pneumonia. It also automates labor-intensive phone monitoring to manage chronic patients, giving healthcare professionals the ability to assess the voice of a patient at any time.

The purpose of the app is to detect health issues early and connect to the right medical provider in order to get the patient treated right away.

The voice tech startup was chosen from nearly 50 applicants and won up to $75,000 to fund its research and develop its tech at Henry Ford.

“Healthymize has potential to expand and detect other health-related concerns, such as heart disease and mental health issues,” said Scott Dulchavsky, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of the Henry Ford Innovation Institute and Chairman of Surgery and Surgeon in Chief at Henry Ford Hospital. “Our physicians are excited to partner with them and adapt their digital health platform while also aligning with existing smart-home-based, personal digital assistants on the market.”

The Henry Ford Health System is based in Detroit, Michigan and is one of the US state’s leading healthcare companies. Its subsidiary Henry Ford Innovations,  issued the challenge this past summer as part of its Global Technology Development Program, designed to identify groundbreaking healthcare technologies from Israeli and launch them in the US healthcare market since 2017.

“We are excited to work with the team at Henry Ford, who excel both in patient care and in fostering innovation. We could not ask for a better partner to push Healthymize forward” said Maura Rosenfeld, Chief Business Development Officer for Healthymize. “As a graduate of the University of Michigan, I also am thrilled to have a strategic collaborator based in Detroit.”

Israeli startup Montfort Brain Monitor, a real-time brain monitor using smartphone tech to record and analyze data from tests on patients with neurological disorders won the challenge in January 2018.