Catalia developed a small robot, the Mabu Personal Healthcare Companion, aimed at assisting with “long-term patient engagement.” It’s able to have tailored conversations with patients that can evolve over time as the platform – developed using principles of behavioral psychology – gains daily data about treatment plans, health challenges and outcomes.

Catalia’s technology deploys AI to help patients manage their own chronic conditions.

“The kinds of algorithms we’re developing, we’re building up psychological models of patients with every encounter,” he explained. “We start with two types of psychologies: The psychology of relationships – how people develop relationships over time – as well as the psychology of  behavior change: How do we chose the right technique to use with this person right now?” Cory Kidd, CEO of Catalia Health

The platform also gets “smarter” as it become more attuned to “what we call our biographical model, which is kind of a catch-all for everything else we learn in conversation,” he said. “This man has a couple cats, this woman’s son calls her every Sunday afternoon, whatever it might be that we’ll use later in conversations.”

‘We’re not trying to replace the human interaction, we’re trying to augment it,’ AI developer says.

Kleinberg (managing director at The Advisory Board Company) pointed to AI pilots where patients paired with humanoid robots “felt a sense of loss” after the test ended. “One woman followed the robot out and waved goodbye to it.”

On the other, “some people are horrified that we would be letting machines play a part in a role that should be played by humans,” he said.

The big question, then: “Do we have place now for society and a system such as this?” he asked.

Source: Healthcare IT News