One of the most important parts of medical practice is triage, or the preliminary assessment of patients to determine the nature and urgency of the treatment they need. Hospitals employ triage to know which patients to prioritize and efficiently allocate their personnel and resources. Most triage systems have five risk levels, ranging from non-urgent to life-threatening.
Unlike other services, healthcare is not on a first-come, first-serve basis. Rather, the patients who need it the most will receive care first. In some instances, triage nurses are overwhelmed by a large number of cases arriving almost simultaneously, and compounded by some people who do not understand the system, demanding to be attended to first even if the condition is not life-threatening.
Seeing the need for proper triage in the developing markets of Latin America, technology startup Sannare has developed an artificial intelligence-powered omnichannel tool that assists in the triage process, reducing the burden on hospitals and medical professionals, as well as assisting patients through the process.
As a true omnichannel solution, users can access Sannare in multiple ways: the Sannare app, landline or mobile call, WhatsApp messaging, or on kiosks in the lobbies of medical facilities. It covers the entire patient journey, from pre-diagnosis to primary care, to management of the medication schedule.
Users can talk to Sannare and describe the symptoms they feel, and the platform compares it to its database of over 100 million symptoms to come up with a pre-diagnosis in around 30 seconds. It recognizes natural language and the various dialects of Spanish and Portuguese used in Latin American countries. The system then conducts triage and gives the user directions on what to do next. In case of severe emergencies, the platform can automatically contact emergency services and direct them to the user's location. For less severe ones, it will guide the user through the process of setting up a telemedicine appointment.
Once a doctor or other medical professional sees the patient, they are already informed of the pre-diagnosis and other important information, making the diagnosis process quicker and easier for them. Doctors can then confirm or change the diagnosis, recommend additional examinations and procedures, and prescribe medications, with all these being recorded on the platform. Sannare app users can then receive notifications on their devices, reminding them of their medication schedules. After diagnosis, Sannare provides patients with a concierge-like follow-up service. This includes measuring medications, receiving alarms regarding a patient's well-being, pain levels, or new symptoms, and reminding patients of their appointments with specialists. This allows Sannare to send ambulances to patients in emergency situations, and contact family and/or caregivers. With this unique approach, Sannare has seen the level of patient adherence to prescribed treatment increase from around 40% to 85%.
According to Andrea Mandelbaum, co-founder of Sannare, the platform works on three levels, serving as an assistant to the patient, the health professional, and the medical facility. Hospitals benefit from Sannare's capability to create a dashboard of all user-patients that display all their information in real-time. It is also able to create detailed and customizable reports, allowing care providers and administrators to remain on top of everything. This is especially important in Latin America, where there is a shortage of facilities and health workers to meet the needs of the population.
Over the past two years, Sannare has been refining its AI engine to improve the accuracy of its pre-diagnosis capability, which now sits at 92%. To date, Sannare has worked with more than 3 million patients and this figure is growing fast. As the volume of data it holds grows, the AI will become even more accurate.
Mandelbaum says that Sannare's triage system can minimize the number of non-urgent case patients showing up at emergency rooms and worsen the workload of the hospital's personnel. It also helps direct patients toward the correct medical specialists. According to Sannare's data, around 27% of patients look for the wrong medical specialist when requesting treatment.
Mandelbaum reveals that Sannare is planning to expand throughout the entirety of Latin America, to meet the region's growing population and need for medical services. It also aims to reach out to areas in the US with high Spanish-speaking populations, giving those with a limited grasp of English better access to medical services. Further ahead, Sannare aims to grow further into the rest of the American market. To achieve these goals, the company is looking for investors and partners to fuel its growth.
"Healthcare has always been one of the most pressing concerns in Latin America and other developing regions around the world," Mandelbaum says. "Sannare aims to help close the gaps and surmount the barriers that people face in accessing healthcare by using AI to streamline the process. Our platform is able to interpret users' natural language to arrive at a more accurate pre-diagnosis, which is backed by data on more than 3 million patients."
