The timeline is the twenty-first century and previously assumed impossible things are happening. Anyone who has worked in the hospital or within the healthcare industry understands the importance of time – every second counts in the mission to save lives and proffer solutions to health conditions. Having to loosen the strain on an overburdened healthcare system is a barrier that needs to be surmounted.
Intron Health is harnessing cutting-edge technology to bridge accents, save invaluable time, break barriers while providing efficient clinical documentation and enhanced doctor-patient interactions within the healthcare ecosystem to unburden the healthcare system.
One is compelled to ask; what problem is Intron Health trying to solve?
Significant challenge for standard speech recognition and transcription technologies with a major focus on EMRs
The linguistic diversity and unique accents present in African regions, pose challenges for traditional speech recognition and transcription technologies. Many existing speech recognition systems are trained on standardized accents and languages, often from more dominant regions like North America or Europe.
This modality has led to inaccuracies, misinterpretation and difficulties in accurately transcribing spoken medical terms or content, patient notes, and other healthcare-related information especially when confronted with the vast array of accents found across the African continent.
Imbalance between administrative responsibilities and patient-focused care
Through interaction with our Founder, Tobi Olatunji who proudly has a background as a medic and other medical professionals, we are confronted with a painstaking problem of healthcare practitioners shouldering the weight of administrative tasks while striving to deliver quality care. Tobi Olatunji recounts “I worked at one of West Africa’s largest hospitals, where I would routinely see more than 30 patients a day, and it was a very hard job,” says Olatunji.
This back-breaking task of documenting patient details and completing forms compounds the pressure on healthcare systems, slowing down medical practices and affecting patient care. This administrative burden is a significant roadblock, robbing healthcare professionals of precious time that could be better invested in patient interactions.
Limitation placed on healthcare professionals’ ability to efficiently document and provide quality care due to linguistic and technological constraints
Language and accent barriers, inefficient documentation processes, limited technology adaptation, compromised quality of care, and restricted data accessibility are key challenges in healthcare. These obstacles hinder accurate documentation, patient-provider interactions, and data-driven research, impacting both professionals and patients.
Intron Health’s Proffered Solution
Our quest is to empower healthcare professionals, particularly in Africa, to deliver effective care, optimize administrative tasks, and contribute to more accessible and impactful healthcare systems.The Intron Health provides EMR and a clinical speech-recognition platform that supports over 200 African accents to hospitals. The algorithms we use have been meticulously trained using data sets collected from clinicians across the continent. This strategic approach ensures that the platform excels at understanding and transcribing over 200 different accents, a feat that a more generalized solution would struggle to accomplish.
The speech-to-text software was built on top of an EMR which the company provides for hospitals. However, Intron Health has more customers using its speech-to-text than its EMR. With more than 92% accuracy and over 200 African accents, the clinical speech-recognition platform or ‘speech app’ as fondly called among users can accurately capture doctors’ dictated messages, reducing the time spent on paperwork by an average of 7x.
Intron Health is on a mission to integrate its software into significant EMRs and have teamed up with NVIDIA, a strategic partner for the Commonwealth initiative, to promote the use of AI in Commonwealth states.
Join us on this journey.
