Artificial Intelligence is just what the doctor ordered

Dubai - Startup aims to empower users through an information ecosystem

Madrid-headquartered MedLab Media Group (MMG) offers the physician of the future tools to facilitate daily clinical practice and decision making. The technology startup has already established its office in Dubai and also extended its presence in Mumbai (India) and Mexico City (Mexico).

It has the institutional support of Confemel (Latin American and Caribbean Medical Confederation) and works with public and private organisations such as the Rey Juan Carlos University, the Medical College of Mexico or NodalBlock.

So, how does it benefit the UAE? "The UAE medical society will benefit in the same way as other doctors, medical students and medical personnel in other countries - bringing reliable and relevant information, decreasing the time for searches, providing reliable and secure communication channels for the medical environment, protecting personal data of patients and medical personnel, generating new knowledge and democratising access to new data in medicine," said Oleg Vorontsov, CEO of MMG.

MMG claims over 60 highly specialised employees are addressing the globalisation of the business on one side and marching towards big data processing and creating algorithms for predictive medicine which helps to predict epidemics, flow of patients and demand for medicines.

The firm is preparing for its Series B round of funding and plans to raise between  60 million euro to 100 million euro between 2019 and 2021 with a possible IPO in 2022, informed Oleg.

Luis Velasco, CFO of MMG, said: "Artificial Intelligence might appear to be something far off, but it is a reality. It has many different applications and the healthcare field offer many possibilities. Some of the most important technological companies in the world, such as IBM and Google, are making huge bets on this field, and we don't want to be left behind as our ideas could contribute something interesting to the market and society. There are several health tools and applications, however none of them comes close to MedLab's features. There are many search engines, but we believe our DeepAIMed is unique for 2 reasons: it is based on in-house AI technology and it offers something that nobody offers. That's the key to success."

MMG currently operates in the region from its recently opened office in Dubai. The company's interest and expansion in the Middle East comes at a time of recent major initiatives in the healthcare sector undertaken by governments. According to combined statistics from the World Health Organisation, World Bank, Alpen Capital and others, the GCC market is expected to grow 12.1 per cent between 2015 and 2020, from $40.3 billion to $71.3 billion.

Statistics from the World Bank shows that Saudi Arabia (47.9 per cent) and the UAE (26 per cent) are the largest contributors to the region's healthcare spending. MMG is seeking to capitalise on these efforts by introducing its solutions to the market.

María Cruz Blanco Yañez, investor in MMG, said: "When I first met the Medlab Media Group team, I understood that they are not doing this only for money, but also adding social responsibility in their business concept. That convinced me the investment from my side can save some lives and democratise healthcare in general. Now, after knowing the team better, I'm very proud to be a part of them. This young and dynamic team with extremely high IQ will create disruptive technologies in healthcare."

Among the products that MMG offers to the doctor of the future is DeepAIMed, an intelligent search engine for medical use, currently available in English and Spanish. The tool is developed with state-of-the-art technology based on AI and capable of understanding databases of medical texts.

To feed its intelligent search engine, MMG has more than 10,000 medical news items from different specialities, more than 18,000 references to medicines extracted from pharmacological guides, 21,098 active ingredients, 7,937 technical data sheets, 1,510 laboratories, more than 70,000 entries to dictionaries, more than 200 medical calculators, more than 1,800,000 scientific research articles and more than 2,400 clinical guides and protocols.

"Artificial Intelligence will change the future of medicine. Soon, access to scientific knowledge will undergo profound changes; big data will change the way health professionals work and AI will be next method of consultation. This is not science fiction," Oleg observed.

Encrypted communication
MMG will introduce MedsBla which is an encrypted messaging system that provides a secure communication environment for doctors, other healthcare professionals, patients, medical students and administrators of medical institutions. The professional will be able to separate their personal and professional communications in an environment that complies with the General Data Protection Regulation and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which are the strictest European and American legislations respectively.

MMG's application offers users 2 communication environments: the global community and private channels for doctors of medical institutions (through licence). In the global community, each user can exchange information with the rest of the users. The first step is the free download of the application to your mobile device, either IoS or Android. The user then sends a contact proposal to interested members. The platform is also available on web browser.

MedsBla's private channel is a premium option for hospitals, clinics, medical centres or different types of organisations whose members want to communicate privately and create their own groups. Both environments share the basic features of a messaging system, as well as many useful tools for the physician.

Blockchain
MMG is working with Nodalblock to incorporate blockchain technology into the company's products to validate and verify identities and documents. Last June, both organisations signed an agreement to jointly create a semi-public certification network that will guarantee the identity of the recipients, as well as their content. The system combines the information by blocks, which are in turn arranged in an articulated chain. Each block contains information from the previous one, so it can only be modified by altering the whole set using asymmetric cryptography. This system guarantees the security of communication.

- sandhya@khaleejtimes.com