附近上门

A common complaint about doctor鈥檚 visits is that patients feel rushed or that their doctor isn鈥檛 focused on them personally.

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One healthtech startup aims to help address those problems with a platform it claims gives clinicians more time to focus on their patients, rather than taking notes. That company, , which describes itself as a medical note documentation startup, it has raised $19 million in a Series B round to help it achieve its mission.

, , , and others participated in the financing. The funding brings San Francisco-based Augmedix鈥檚 since its inception in 2012 to $82 million, according to 附近上门 data.

Using augmented reality, the company turns natural clinician-patient conversation into medical documentation in real time. The Augmedix platform is powered by a combination of proprietary natural-language-processing technology and medical documentation 鈥渆xpert teams,鈥� according to the company.

Augmedix provides clinicians with hardware, smartphones or Google Glass, 鈥渢o securely stream the clinic visit鈥� to its cloud-based platform. Then, tech-enabled remote specialists use proprietary automation modules to generate medical documentation that Augmedix claims 鈥渋s accurate, comprehensive and timely delivered.鈥� The service currently works with over 25 specialties and supports most electronic health records (EHRs).

Augmedix has partnered with 15 health systems (including Sutter Health, CommonSpirit Health, and US Oncology) with the goal of decreasing clinician burnout while increasing productivity. Those systems聽 employ well over 100,000 physicians, or about 10 percent of the U.S. total in aggregate, according to the company.

, CEO at Augmedix, said the startup is 鈥渁ddressing the serious and growing problem of doctor burnout.鈥�

And, he said, it鈥檚 doing it differently than its competitors because the note taking is performed in real time. The benefits of this, according to Krakaris, are that a physician feels that his/her documentation specialist is an 鈥渆xtension of the care team.鈥� The specialist observes what is taking place (both visually and audibly) 鈥渋n a completely passive manner,鈥� he added.

鈥淭hat allows the doctor to have a completely normal interaction with the patient, which translates into a higher level of patient care and higher patient satisfaction,鈥� Krakaris said. Also, 鈥渋t yields the greatest time savings for them (up to three hours each day), which they can bank into quality of life enhancement or convert into increased patient volume.鈥�

The company said it will use the new capital 鈥渢o accelerate product development, including automation capabilities, and to strategically scale its technology-enabled service across health systems and private clinics nationwide.鈥�

Looking ahead, Krakaris told 附近上门 News the company is specifically working to 鈥渇urther improve operating efficiency鈥� with tools that will use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning 鈥渢o harness the vast amounts of audio and text data we generate each week.鈥� It currently employs just over 400 people worldwide as well as enlisting the services of about 800 contractors.

Augmedix has seen its compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) 鈥渃omfortably exceed 50 percent鈥� since 2015, when it launched its commercial service 鈥渋n earnest,鈥� the CEO added.

I asked if the company was HIPAA compliant and it told me that its聽entire system satisfies HIPAA data security standards.

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