Dr. Cory Kidd, founder and CEO of Catalia Health, delivers an informative discussion on chronic disease healthcare management and the benefits of using robots that are tailored to a particular patient’s needs to help them manage their conditions.
With over two decades of experience
in healthcare technology focused on innovations and solutions to major
healthcare challenges, Dr. Kidd is uniquely qualified to make an impact in the
patient/user experience. He has successfully launched other health and tech
oriented companies as a veteran of the industry. Dr. Kidd received a M.S. and
Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab, specializing in human-robot interaction. His
primary objective while there was to demonstrate how there were obvious
clinical, as well as psychological, advantages to using physical robots instead
of traditional screen-based methods. While the front end allows for easy
patient interfacing, the back end flows to doctors and health professionals who
are working to monitor the overall progress of these chronic care patients. From
arthritis to kidney issues and more, Catalia Health’s robotic tech products
deliver outstanding results for patient and doctor.
As the health technology CEO explains, the
robot elicits a stronger long-term engagement with patients. The fact that the
robot actually looks at you creates a much deeper psychological connection with
patients, which drives them to be more involved with their own health and the
management of their condition over long periods of time. Catalia Health’s
robots (know individually as Mabu) are built on a set of artificial
intelligence algorithms that draw on psychology to form the conversations with
patients. As it is not scripted, but interaction based, the experience feels
interactive and real, and, ironically, more human. Much like a physician
tailors the needed medical information and delivers it in a way that is best
suited for an individual, Catalia Health’s robots also interact and respond
with patients in a manner that creates a comfortable experience. Catalia
Health’s platform‘s integrated technology learns about a patient’s overall
personality, and their interests, as well as any particular treatment
difficulties or challenges they have had over time. This enables the Mabu robot
to engage in conversations that are unique to each patient, based on
established behavioral models of psychology designed to promote significant
behavioral change for improved well-being. As Mabu communicates daily, patients
are much more likely to manage their treatment better. Dr. Kidd gives a detailed
analysis on the topics of symptoms, side effects, and psychosocial issues,
which are three major components of the AI based care management. And as the
old modified proverb says, the proof is in the pudding, and this is certainly
evidenced by Catalia Health’s data from their experimentation and market
testing. In multiple testing situations in which three groups of patients were
told to use either the paper log system to record and manage their care, the
Catalia Health software on a computer, or the system integrated into an actual
robot, the robot was strongly preferred, by far. Some people even tried to
negotiate to keep their test robot longer, which is about as glowing an
endorsement as you could hope for. The robots clearly have won.