Amissa, a startup backed by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, launched on Wednesday to enhance menopause care with its AI-powered platform.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm is a recipient of the NIH’s Small Enterprise Innovation Analysis grant. Misplaced makes use of knowledge from a number of sources to generate insights that assist clinicians monitor modifications in menopause signs over time and make extra knowledgeable care choices. It makes use of three most important pillars of knowledge, in accordance with Samantha Smith, co-founder and CEO of Amissa:
- The Menopause Score Scale: a questionnaire that assesses the severity of widespread menopausal signs like scorching flashes, sleep points and temper modifications. That is included in affected person onboarding and pre-appointment consumption.
- Symptom monitoring: ladies are requested to constantly self-track their signs.
- Wearable knowledge: Amissa has integrations with wearables just like the Apple Watch, Oura, Garmin and Whoop. This supplies insights into sleep, fatigue and extra.
This info is aggregated right into a single, reviewable scientific report within the supplier’s EHR. It permits suppliers to know a affected person’s signs earlier than, throughout and between visits and make modifications to their care if wanted. For sufferers, it makes it simpler for them to trace and share signs and reduces the burden on them to recollect particulars throughout appointments.
The corporate’s providers are essential as a result of ladies can enter perimenopause — the transition interval main as much as menopause — as early as their mid-30s, and there are dozens of signs that aren’t all the time apparent. Folks typically affiliate menopause with scorching flashes, however these sometimes happen a lot later, Smith mentioned. As a substitute, early signs usually tend to embrace anxiousness, temper swings or different “issues that you just may not even affiliate with a hormone change,” she said.
“You possibly can expertise signs for as much as 10 years by this complete journey. … For those who have a look at research that exist about EHRs, they don’t even have the fields out there to trace these signs over time, and that’s essential to know precisely what’s occurring with that affected person to have the ability to help. So actually, the answer, at any time when I’m pitching buyers, it’s not very horny, however its simplicity is what makes it so nice. It’s simply organizing knowledge in a method that may allow clinicians to behave extra intelligently,” Smith declared.
The corporate is already working with 10 scientific practices throughout the U.S, together with Helia Well being. Suppliers pay a per-clinician price for Amissa’s platform, in accordance with Smith.
“Menopause signs don’t transfer in a straight line,” mentioned Dr. Ariel Haddad, OB-GYN and founding father of Helia Well being, in an announcement. “After I can see what’s enhancing, what’s worsening, and what’s staying the identical between visits, I can alter care with confidence and present sufferers that their expertise is being taken critically.”
Menopause and perimenopause are receiving rising consideration throughout the healthcare trade, as extra firms emerge and achieve traction within the house. This contains digital menopause suppliers Midi Well being, Evernow and Gennev. Nonetheless, Amissa is the “solely platform centered on that connectivity piece for clinicians,” Smith claimed.
“We’re B2B. We’re not a wearable. We’re not a complement. We don’t present drugs, or we don’t present precise recommendation. So we’re actually taking part in in what I prefer to name a protected house on the subject of regulation, but in addition offering most worth for the info out there,” she added.
Finally, the corporate goals to “redefine” menopausal care.
“My huge purpose is to make it possible for we help clinicians in a method that not solely improves look after the ladies who’re in these conditions now, however for ladies sooner or later like myself, hopefully creating a greater future, simply typically, the place we are able to change the tide round menopause,” Smith mentioned.
Photograph: Amissa
