Israeli-based health tech company Cordio has developed machine learning software that can be downloaded to a smartphone and help keeps cardiac patients out of the hospital., a patient at risk for heart failure may find themselves waking up in the morning, opening up his smartphone and uttering these words: “The cat sat on the ship. David is a big chef. Jeff plays the guitar.”
“This situation became the Holy Grail of the remote monitoring industry,” says Tal, 50. “To find a way to identify patients when they’re getting close to hospitalization because the patient doesn’t feel it.” Abraham, who’s currently conducting the company’s trial, says that if the results bear out and the app goes on the market, it offers a unique solution in the market for heart failure patients. “What's exciting about this one is its simplicity, its elegance, and that’s it's ready to be universally deployed to our heart failure patients,” he says. “It doesn’t require any hardware or devices in the home–all you need is a smartphone.
The inspiration for the Cordio app, Tal says, came from cofounder Chaim Lotan, who is a cardiologist. He and his colleagues had noticed that when a patient had too much fluid in their lungs, it was actually audible in their voice. But generally by that point it was too late to prevent a trip to the hospital. So the idea behind Cordio’s app is to see if software could detect those vocal changes earlier.
For Mark Goldwasser, CEO of Ceros Financial, his company’s investment was its clear vision for how to implement its technology in a way that wasn’t just hype. “Everyone talks about artificial intelligence, machine learning and remote diagnostics and this company had it all,” he says.