Cera is building an AI for social care decision support – TechCrunch

Can AI overhaul the social care system? Thats the pitchunderpinning UK home care providerCeras plans. The startuphas today taken the tiniestbaby steps to launch an AI chatbot that it hopes will, at an unspecified point in future, be able to assist carerswith recommendations forhome care of people with conditions such as dementia. And even potentially steer off medical emergencies via pre-emptive alerts.

The far more basicreality of the chatbot its launching today is that Martha (as its called)will be able to recommend care packages to potential customers. Whichunderlines how the inflated promises of AI really do hingeon data acquisition. In Cerascase its largelyleaningon its social care workersto generate the underlying data to train the AI. These human workerswill be tasked with creating the data points to fill out the care records that will be used to power the chatbots future carerecommendations and alerts.

And while there are plenty of symptom-checker type AIs already out there, Ceras positioning in the social care space sets it apart from other platforms, argues co-founder Ben Maruthappu, given its not aiming for the chatbotto be used directly by its clients (who may not be capable of using a smartphone app, for example), but rather to act as decision support for their carers.

Here AI has the scope to be very impactful, he argues.

The startup, which bills itself as a tech-enabled home care provider launched its social care matching platform last November, and has raised some $3.4 million to date from investors including Kima Ventures and Credo Ventures.

It has hundreds of care workers on its platform at this point,according to Maruthappu, and has delivered tens of thousands of care hours accruing millions of data points, as it couches it.

Maruthappu says Cera isfirstly using technology to accelerate the process ofmatching appropriate care workers to clients, as a route to outmaneuver traditional providers, and also applying tech to squeeze back-end costs so thatit can spend more on front end care and compensation for care workers to try to raise quality standards in an industry that has been beset byscandals.

Ultimately, though, it is also hoping all thosecare-related data points being gathered by care workers onits platform will be able to power an AI that it can deployto augment its future care services with decision support atscale, and provide even more of a differentiator vstraditional care providers.

The chatbot, which is being developed in concert withBloomsbury AI, a machine readingspinout from Londons UCL,will usemachine reading and deeplearning to dispense personalized care advice.

Maruthappu gives theexample of a care worker messagingMartha to say that a patient is feeling a bit hot and the AI then pulling relevant info from their care records noting thepatient had a cough last week, and telling them to check for a temperature and other symptoms in case the patient hasa chest infection.

Were going to use Martha [for] supporting our care workers in providing better quality care. Essentially raising the ceiling on the standard that is delivered, he says of this future plan.

We [also] want Martha to be able to predict if people are going to deteriorate Based on reading previous entries in care records Martha will flag alerts and essentially pre-empt a persons deterioration so that care workers and family members can be adequately alerted and a proactive approach can be taken to their care.

He wont give a time frame for launching the predictive alerts, but decision-support should be coming later this year he says.

Of courseshould Martha actually be in a position to start dispensing care recommendations it would likely need to have been registered as a medical device with the UKs regulatory body, the MHRA. And Maruthappu confirms Cera hasnot currently registered the app, since its merely dispensing sales suggestions to potential customers at this point.

Is the aim to use the AI to effectively upskill care workers with medical training? He says its not to upskill them to the level of trained nurses, for example, but to offer decision-support so they may be better able to identify when escalated care might be required.

Maruthappu also argues that a chatbot interface that can be usedto keep track of individual patients care records canhelp quality of service in instances where a clientmight be seen by multiplecare workers helping to join the dots in theircare over time.

Cera has partnered with ten NHS organizations at this point ten-weeks in, whichMaruthappu says collectively cover a population of around six million people.

We offer a higher quality, more efficient and transparent service, he says, discussing the businesspitch to the healthcare organizations its selling services to. At the moment bed blocking is a tremendous issue in the NHS. This is essentially where a patient whose in a hospital could be discharged home and is medically fit to be discharged to go home but for non-medical reasons they dont go home.

And if you look across winter the number one reason why people werent discharged when they couldhave been is because their home care package was not organizedThis is a massively growing problem for the health service, he adds.

What are the risks ofhaving an automated technology dispensing what amounts to medical advice that may then be actioned by a human? Its fundamentally care advice, and it is decision-support, but these are all things that are within the remit of a high quality care worker. Were simply trying to support and increase consistency in the care, arguesMaruthappu.

As an analogy, if a taxi driver needs to go from A to B and theyre using a maps app, the maps app is supporting them but ultimately its the driver who is driving, who is making decisions about the route and if they need to change the route it will do that accordingly.

Apps are simply an enabler which can potentially improve efficiency and quality, he adds. But ultimately it is up to the person delivering the services to make appropriate decisions and manage that responsibly.

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Cera is building an AI for social care decision support - TechCrunch