The days of maverick, cane-wielding doctors riding on a hunch and a whiteboard to make medical decisions may be numbered — at least, if KenSci, an artificial intelligence startup out of Seattle, has anything to say about it.
3-year-old KenSci just raised a $22m Series B to advance its predictive AI platform, which uses aggregate data to forecast patient risk for things like sepsis, heart attacks, and even cancer.
Armed with a hashtag (#deathvsdatascience) and a dream, KenSci seems poised to take the ward by storm.
KenSci provides a “risk prediction” dashboard for healthcare practitioners to track cost of care, no-show appointments, and readmission rates — all in the hopes of lowering expenses for providers.
And a little help with resourcing could go a long way: VentureBeat writes that in 2017, US health care costs hit $3.5T (17.9% of the US’ GDP).
It also has potential to help doctors make bigger patient decisions…
Research from KenSci shows that patients on average “transitioned to end-of-life care too late: 28% of patients transferred to hospices died or were discharged within a week.”
In other words, KenSci’s system could use data to predict mortality rates and make heretofore personal decisions between a patient and doctor about their end-of-life care more quantitative.