Health and fitness, as a lifestyle choice, have been embraced by many of us. Staying fit in a busy schedule turns out to be quite a difficult task. In this day and age, the proverb, prevention is better than cure, has gained more absolute sense than just being a mere statement. Technological advancements are paving the way for healthcare service providers, to make it available to the general public’s aid without creating a hassle, by facilitating efficient solutions.
With tech-development as its forte, Medicus AI is building towards a future where the focus on health is part of everyday life.
Medicus empowers people in understanding the medical and health-related information and also engages them with personalized health insights. It is an AI-based platform that converts data pertaining to health into an immersive experience with comprehensible explanations for personalized health insights and coaching on smart well-being.
Medicus offers a smart platform and app that interprets and translates medical reports and health data into easy-to-understand, personalized explanations. Everything is offered as an interactive experience. Medicus’ smart coaching delivers health tips and actionable steps towards developing sustainable healthy habits. The app communicates with the users based on the data it acquires. The more input the app gets (regarding health and lifestyle data and related info), the more personalized insights it can provide the users about their health.
Medicus currently covers the following information related to the users:
- Biometric Data
- All Vitals
- Full Health
- Profile and Family History
- Medications and the most tested blood
- Urine
- Stool Markers
Medicus facilitates patient-friendly health reports and fosters continuous and personalized well-being coaching, which is a contributing factor for diagnostic labs and health insurance companies. The company’s mission is to imbibe itself into this continuously evolving healthcare industry while changing the perspectives of doctors and patients about health. Having a comprehensive and meticulous approach to data privacy and protection sets Medicus apart. The organization puts ethical considerations above all else and believes ardently in the democratization of health data.
“We currently have 109 smart biomarkers with full content, 148 basic content biomarkers and 220 basic info biomarkers” (LOINC codes), says Dr. Baher Al Hakim, Founder – Medicus. He is a dentist by study and a serial entrepreneur by practice, with fourteen years of experience in amongst the broad spectrum of disciplines like product and technology, business, sales, and marketing.
Before establishing Medicus, Dr. Baher founded a digital agency in 2008 called CloudAppers. Later in 2015, he stepped down from an authoritative position of the company to start Medicus. He also founded a napkin start-up studio in 2012 with $850,000 in funding that prototyped, built and launched many products. Three of these segments were later spun off as standalone companies.
Disrupting the Healthcare Space
“We have a lot of techniques to achieve high efficiency at Medicus,” informs Dr. Baher. One of the techniques is the ‘two-minute rule’, that describes anything, or any issue encountered which can be solved under two minutes must be completed immediately. The cost, time and effort put into thinking about the solution become greater if not solved right away.
Another tool utilized by Medicus is the ‘collect, process, and action’. This initiative is implemented when small tasks keep adding up between the daily routine which may hamper productivity. “The ‘collect, process, action’ states that you must work on what you have planned for the day, and all the little tasks that add up must go into an inbox,” shares Dr. Baher. In this way, one can dedicate the essential time focusing on one task only while remaining productive. “This way, the inbox can be processed regularly, and you can repeat the process,” he further adds.
Quantification of Health has been one of the prominent strategies that Medicus has imbibed to stay competent in the healthcare space. “We have developed a novel method for the determination of physical and psychological health state that is based on scientific evidence and approved questionnaires,” describes Dr. Baher.
Medicus’ proprietary Wellbeing Quiz serves as a fun onboarding trigger by incentivizing the user to fill out the questionnaire in exchange for a detailed breakdown of their health scores. It also provides the engine with a starting point to personalize the interpretation of further health-relevant inputs and measure changes in outcomes over time. Having a scientific base is also another way through which the facility remains competent in the market. All insights are exclusively based on accepted medical knowledge and official guidelines, with links to each respective source. These sources can easily be adapted to national regulations or regional differences.
“We are shaping ourselves to become extraordinary in what we do by having a holistic approach to health,” says Dr. Baher. Medicus is not targeting a specific type of members, or disease/condition, instead it is focusing on the overall health and well-being of the user with all variables taken into account. All of this information consists of blood biomarkers, medication, signs, and symptoms, the patient’s medical history (personal and family), lifestyle factors (including wearables) and the patient’s profile.
The Past, Present & Future
The journey of this healthcare facilitator has been full of obstacles and opportunities. Medicus initially observed an opportunity in the widespread adoption of smartphones among people. “We thought there was rarely anything health-related on our smartphones, although virtually everyone has one today,” Dr. Baher said.
Another opportunity encountered by the company, was people’s curiosity towards their health which became evident as per the increased numbers of health-related online searches. With medicines becoming more complex day by day, the tendency of people has more inclined towards knowing and understanding the drugs and medications taken by them. Hence, the patient-centric approach has become more of a priority within the healthcare sector.
The turning point for Medicus was when it closed the first tranche of its Series A over €2.75m in February 2019 and is on track of closing the second tranche over €3m in the middle of November this year. Medicus’ business model is B2B2C, meaning the product is built for the end-user (the patient). But it is paid for by healthcare providers such as labs and health insurers. The business model may also vary depending on differences in the patients’ journey across healthcare systems.
“We believe that a personalized, visual and comprehensible user-interface to health and healthcare is the main platform to drive innovation,” explains the team of Medicus. The team also believes that all smart decisions are born from comprehensive knowledge and understanding, that every person makes the right decision when given the right information. It also believes in empowering patients with knowledge and insights that can help them in making the best decisions about their health at any time. The clients want to understand their health better and rely more on prevention rather than intervention.
Medicus’ unique approach to company-building is scientific and based on first-principles, with the purpose of leading the transformation of the industry. In terms of benefit, Medicus offers smart reports and diagnostics packages to clients.
Most labs currently are not prepared to cope with the tightening regulations that require providing all reports to any patient upon request, that too, in a secure method. The second benefit the clients receive is the well-being and prevention package, which enables diagnostic labs to strengthen relationships with their patients.
In addition to this, the re-selling of the package to interested insurance providers is also achieved. The latter are already demanding such services to answer the challenges of rising costs and claims and are eager to integrate services that reduce health risks and improve clinical outcomes in a quantifiable way.
