The advent of technologies like AI/ML has proved to be a boon for mankind. Prediction of future diseases through data analysis has created a massive revolution in the healthcare sector. Early detection of diseases will result in creating awareness about the disease, early treatment, fewer complications, and better prognosis. Deadly diseases like cancer, cardiac diseases, kidney failure, etc., can be detected early and can save people’s lives with early treatment/intervention and rehabilitation sessions. Along with decreasing the healthcare cost, it will also increase the lifespan of an individual. The morbidity and mortality rate will be decreased. “A healthy individual means a healthy and happy family. A healthy family means a developed country. We, at Fedo, generate a quantitative health score called the Fedo Score, which gives an idea of a patient’s health status and predicts adverse risk for certain diseases,” says Prasanth Madavana, CEO and Co-founder, FEDO.
FEDO.ai is one of a kind health-tech startup that leverages AI/ML to predict the health risk of an individual. Their key USP is the FEDO Score – a credit score for health, which gives a complete quantitative value to an individual’s health backed by research. A holistic indicator of the future health risks of an individual, it aids indicate their likelihood of getting diabetes and other lifestyle-based diseases. Built by medical professionals and data scientists using 250+ medical studies, 5000+ plus quality controlled and academic and research documents from all over the world and analyzing over 100 Million global health records and 1.5 million claims data, the FEDO score ranges from 0 to 1000. “In our observation, any individual with a score above 600 can be considered a healthy, low-risk person, and anyone scoring less than 400 can be considered high-risk. Anything between 400 and 600 can be considered a moderate risk,” states Prasanth.
FEDO’s algorithm is designed to predict diseases risks at a warning/directional level and not clinical. Their idea is to funnel the riskiest people to the medical experts so that interventions can be done early. Currently, FEDO is working to predict six chronic lifestyle diseases like Diabetes, Chronic Kidney diseases, Chronic Heart diseases, Hypertension, Chronic Vascular diseases, and Obesity. “We are working to incorporate more diseases like liver diseases, cancer, etc., into our system in near future. The accuracy of this prediction model is around 75-80%. With more data available, the accuracy and precision of the model will increase with time”, opines Prasanth.
Helping Detect Health Risks Easily
As per the United Nations, non-communicable diseases could cost the global economy $47 Trillion by 2030. Hence, with a mission to enhance the delivery of health care and reduce out-of-pocket expenses for every human being on the planet, FEDO has created its proprietary tool – FEDO Score. FEDO score, an indicator of your health – comparable, accessible, and usable by all the stakeholders to better understand their or their customer’s health. Thus, FEDO lends a hand to health and wellness providers in identifying the target customer groups. Since the efficiency and outcome of the tool depend on data, collecting substantial data to make any meaningful predictions was the major challenge for FEDO as they started their journey. “Most of the available data was in raw form and needed substantial cleaning. We spent over a year collecting and cleaning up data and making it useful. Now we can proudly say we have the cleanest and the most comprehensive lifestyle health database for India”, explains Prasanth.
A combination of medical professionals, data scientists, and engineers, the team at FEDO is supported and mentored by industry veterans from the insurance and medical fields. A management professional, Prasanth has 2 decades of innovation and change management experience in Asia, Europe, and North America. Arun, Co-founder of FEDO, is a healthcare analytics expert with 2 decades of global experience in health insurance, claims processing, enrolment, and products. Ashish Mehrotra, the ex-CEO of Max Bupa, is an investor and advisor at FEDO. Together, they are growing and scaling new heights.
Tackling obstacles like a pro, the first hurdle Prasanth came with was the no availability of data. They spent more than a year collecting and clean the database without looking for either a fundraise or new customers. The second was getting this idea and score accepted by people. The team at Fedo has done multiple pilots, proof of concepts, and explanations till they got their first client. “We passionately believe in the Fedo Score and want the industry to leverage it to enhance the delivery of health care and reduce out-of-pocket expenses for every human being on the planet”, adds Prasanth.
Being a small company that was recently started, Fedo considers every small win as a major milestone in their journey. The day they landed their first customer to the day they got selected by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government among the deep tech companies. “I consider the day when we registered our company was one of the key milestones in our journey. However, the day when we accurately predicted that the head of a well-known insurance company was prediabetic and he got diagnosed with the same the very next day by his doctor, further boosted our confidence on what we were out to achieve”, recalls Prasanth.
Bring the ‘Tech’ in HealthTech
The telemedicine, teleconsultation, and remote doctor consultation industry have surged massively since the pandemic. All thanks to digital India and recent technology, the market expected to reach people can now avail all kinds of medical advice, medicines, and consultations right from their homes through their smartphones. With the market size of telemedicine expected to increase to USD 5.5 billion by 2025, the current pandemic has generated awareness among individuals to adopt a healthy lifestyle. They are keener to invest in health and life insurance. Being a health-tech company that has taken this pandemic as a challenge to work for the Community, FEDO utilized technologies like AI/ML to create a model to predict the possible risk associated with COVID-19 by analyzing the health conditions of individuals. They have also developed a video-based vital signs monitoring algorithm so that people can assess their health risks without going out of their homes.
The COVID-19 pandemic has already shown the way for the future of healthcare. Remote health checkups through video conferencing have been on the rise. The health status of a person can be detected through image or video analysis. All the vital signs can be detected through certain attributes present on the face. For example – the pulse rate, blood pressure, stress, and SPO2 can be detected through blood flow on the face. Hence, a physician can easily get an insight into the overall health status of an individual through these models. The appointment scheduling and lab tests operational efficiency can be increased, and there will be better accuracy of regular health checkups. “We are now partnering with a healthcare company in the USA to improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery, and with a global leader in life Insurance based out of North America for their global operations,” concludes Prasanth.