Startups use artificial intelligence in the diagnosis of covid-19

During the quarantine, several companies are changing their focus to digital and new companies are emerging or changing their operations in order to assist in the fight against Covid-19. Brazilian startups such as Coronabr and Mindify are two examples of novice companies that make use of technology to improve services during the time of social isolation caused by coronavirus. Flávio Machado, responsible for Coronabr, talked to EXAME about his initiative. The site, which is in ibm's public cloud, gathers information about the disease and has a kind of virtual nurse named "Pedro do Coronabr", which was developed from teleorientation or clinical diagnostic scripts. The robot intends to screen patients to define which need face-to-face medical care or which can remain at home, based on the reported symptoms. The site was developed by Pixit, a communication agency where Flávio Machado is president, with the intention of relieving the burden that health institutions are suffering during this period. The service proved essential due to the increase in use during the month of March, when it was launched. Today, with more than 4.5 million daily accesses, it is able to support about 184,000 individuals simultaneously, which demonstrates that Brazilians are resorting to digital to take care of their health. For EXAME, Machado commented that the robot was developed based on an algorithm: "Behind 'Pedro do Coronabr', there is an algorithm that was developed in partnership with Dr. Aline Okita, who is the medical head of the project, and the algorithm is responsible for evaluating each response and triggering the best response for the individual," Machado said. He added that the algorithm, launched on March 19, is already used by health plans such as Unimed, and that the insertion of the project in the Startup With IBM program allowed its reach to increase, reaching more than one million hits on the first day. The startup Mindify uses artificial intelligence to deliver assisted diagnoses to people seeking to know whether or not they are infected by the new coronavirus. With the optimization of the disease identification protocol, the startup seeks to help people who are looking for a fast and free diagnosis for covid-19. Since March, the technology has been used in a Unimed health plan application, in an area dedicated to telemedicine. Through an artificial intelligence system, the patient answers a sequence of questions in the application, to do a screening. Then the doctor receives the report prepared by the system and decides what are the next steps that should be taken. André Ramos, president and founder of the startup, says the intention is to debureaucratize the screening process: "With the platform, we can deliver a low-cost solution," Ramos said. The service is sold by the company to hospitals and health companies for a monthly fee of 1,100 reais. The similarity between the initiatives is in helping to combat covid-19 and using technology to respond to this moment of crisis. Both initiatives are supported by technology company IBM, which, through its public cloud platform IBM Cloud, allows companies to expand the reach of their projects. .