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Kin Health raises $9M to build an AI notetaker for patients
The market for AI notetaking devices has exploded in the U.S., with the category generating over $600 million in revenue last year, according to a Menlo Ventures report. And as startups like Heidi Health and Freed, have shown, there’s decent demand for this tech in healthcare, where doctors and clinics see the potential for an AI assistant that can help them keep track of patient conversations, surface health records, and lower their administrative burdens.
But those apps don’t do much for patients, which is why Kin Health is building a notetaker that can transcribe your visits to doctors, parse medical advice, and surface next steps when required. To that end, the startup has raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Maveron.
The app is similar to a meeting notetaker: you can record doctor visits, and it will return an AI summary of the meeting, with the next steps, all of which you share with family and friends if you want to. It also lets you note down questions that you might want to ask during your next visit.
Kin Health says it encrypts all patient data, and that summaries are kept private by default. The tool is not HIPAA-certified, as it is a patient-facing one, but it adheres to the same privacy standards, the company said.
The free app is built by physicians Arpan and Amit Parikh, along with Kyle Alwyn, who previously built online prescription service HeyDoctor and sold it to health platform GoodRx. Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek, co-founders of GoodRx, are founding partners and executive chairmen at the company.
“We have a lot of these storage cabinets where our health data can live, but we don’t have a way to convert that into a utility that we can use to drive our behavioral change. Our goal is to create this health graph where we can store your information from multiple different sources,” Alwyn told TechCrunch over a call.
Kin Health says that its summaries are provided after a few stages of processing. After transcribing the visit, an algorithm turns the transcription into a clinical narrative, which gets crunched into a user-facing summary with action items. The company says it is leaning on specialized medical models to power the transcription, and that it evaluates and observes outputs at different stages to ensure answers are accurate.
But AI in healthcare is being received with a measure of caution and apprehension. Privacy experts and researchers have raised concerns over data security, accuracy of AI, consent mechanisms, the quality of generated notes, and their effectiveness.
AI notetakers also often fail to recognize and struggle to transcribe regional accents. Kin Health says it is working to ensure its tool works with different accents, as well as when someone has a bad throat or is wearing a mask.
Dr. Rebecca Mishuris, chief health information officer and VP at Mass General Brigham, a healthcare organization in Boston, argues it is important for physicians to review any notes generated by AI.
“Generative AI will hallucinate; that is the nature of a technology built on patterns and prediction. That is why it is so important for clinicians to review the drafted notes before signing them. At the end of the day, the responsibility for the documentation falls to the clinician,” she told TechCrunch over email.
Kin Health currently only shows notes from conversations it records during consultations, but the company said it plans to bring in data from other health sources, including physicians’ own notes through electronic health record (EHR) systems, this year.
The company says it will keep the app free of cost forever, and monetize via referrals to services such as specialists and labs. The startup is taking a leaf from GoodRx’s playbook, which also keeps the core product free and earns commissions by referring other services.
Natalie Dillion, a partner at Maveron, said healthcare provider-side tools often expect patients to coordinate their own treatment actions. “Kin is built to solve an entirely different consumer need: it can travel with them between specialists, systems, and providers. It’s not beholden to any single health network or EHR relationship. It’s built to serve the patient, not the institution, and that’s a massive distribution advantage,” she said.
The funding round also saw participation from Town Hall Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Flex Capital, Foundry Square Capital, Pear VC, and The Family Fund. GoodRx’s Hirsch and Bezdek; angel investors Jay Desai, Nabeel Quryshi, Alex Cohen and Saharsh Patel; and more than 30 physicians also invested.
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Menopause, the natural stage marking the end of a woman’s reproductive years, can significantly affect bone health and increase the risk of osteoporosis and fractures due to declining oestrogen levels, a medical expert has said.
Although menopause has important health implications, it remains a frequently overlooked issue within Nigeria’s sexual and reproductive health and rights framework.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), menopause occurs when a woman’s menstrual periods stop permanently because of declining levels of oestrogen and the loss of ovarian follicular function. As a result, the ovaries stop releasing eggs for fertilisation, making natural conception no longer possible.
Common symptoms associated with menopause include hot flushes, night sweats, irregular menstrual flow, vaginal dryness, pain during sexual intercourse, urinary incontinence, sleep disturbances, mood changes, anxiety and depression.
Perimenopause refers to the transition period leading to menopause and extends until one year after the final menstrual period, while postmenopause begins after a woman has gone 12 consecutive months without menstruation.
In Nigeria, women generally attain menopause around the age of 48 and above as part of the natural ageing process.
Menopause and bone health
Speaking with PT Health Watch, Qudus Lawal, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, said menopause disrupts hormonal balance, leading to increased bone breakdown and reduced bone formation.
According to him, while nearly all women experience some degree of bone loss after menopause because of declining oestrogen levels, not all will develop osteoporosis or sustain fractures.
He explained that bone density before menopause plays a major role in determining a woman’s risk of osteoporosis later in life.
Using a financial analogy, Mr Lawal described bone health as a balance between deposits and withdrawals.
“The stronger the bone density a woman builds before menopause, the better protected she is against the accelerated loss that occurs afterwards,” he said.
Why bone loss increases after menopause
Mr Lawal explained that oestrogen normally suppresses osteoclasts, the cells responsible for breaking down bone tissue.
However, when oestrogen levels fall after menopause, these cells become more active, while osteoblasts, the cells responsible for building new bone, are unable to replace bone at the same rate.
This imbalance gradually weakens bones and increases the risk of osteoporosis and fractures.
Maintaining healthy bones after menopause
Mr Lawal recommended a combination of proper nutrition, regular exercise and preventive healthcare measures to maintain bone health after menopause.
He advised women to consume balanced diets rich in calcium and vitamin D, engage in weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercises, and take steps to prevent falls.
“When you take foods and supplements that are rich in those essential nutrients, it helps build the bone,” he said.
He stressed the importance of early intervention, noting that bone density loss is often silent and may not produce symptoms until complications occur.
“One of the ways people present is that they grow shorter. Normally, once you get to a certain age after puberty, you are not supposed to grow shorter.
“But many of our mothers begin to lose height over time, which may result from age-related spinal degeneration and bone loss,” he said.
According to him, many women only become aware of significant bone loss after suffering fractures.
“The fracture can be due to a fall, sometimes a little push that you normally have without having symptoms. Just a little trip in the bathroom could lead to a major fracture,” he added.
READ ALSO: Women demand fertility, menopause coverage in workplace health insurance – Report
Mr Lawal noted that in some countries, bone density screening forms part of routine wellness checks for postmenopausal women, helping identify individuals at high risk and allowing for early intervention.
He urged women to adopt healthy lifestyles and prioritise bone health long before menopause.
According to him, the goal is to ensure women build and maintain strong bone density before menopause to minimise the impact of hormonal changes later in life.
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