Ada launches its Global Health Initiative and announces new partnerships to transform healthcare access with power of AI

Ada, the AI-powered health platform that helps individuals understand their health and navigate to appropriate care, today announced the launch of its Global Health Initiative (GHI), a series of major projects focused on improving the availability and delivery of primary care in underserved populations worldwide. 

Ada’s initial project partners are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private US foundation and Fondation Botnar, a Swiss foundation applying the latest technology to improve the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents in low-and-middle-income countries across the globe. 

Globally, four billion people lack access to basic health services and, due to population growth, there will be an estimated 18 million shortfall in health workers by 2030. The Ada Global Health Initiative will help solve this problem by combining artificial intelligence, human medical expertise and the power of mobile technology to deliver health access to care and guidance at scale.

Approximately one-third of Ada’s users come from rural and less developed healthcare markets, such as India, Asia and Africa. Led by newly-appointed Managing Director of the Global Health Initiative, Hila Azadzoy, GHI will partner with governments, NGOs and global health organisations to research, build and implement new AI-led solutions to specific healthcare needs in lower- and middle-income countries. 

At the center of these solutions will be Ada’s artificial intelligence technology, which has been trained over the past seven years using real-world medical cases and with insights from a team of over 100 doctors, scientists & PhDs. Since launching its free-to-download health guide app in 2016, Ada has completed over seven million health assessments and has been the #1 medical app in over 130 countries worldwide.

“Since launching Ada, we’ve heard hundreds of stories about how the app has improved or even saved lives,” said Daniel Nathrath, CEO and co-founder of Ada. “Often these stories come from parts of the world where it can be extremely difficult to see a doctor or get professional medical advice — but where people do own, or have access to, a smartphone. By partnering with organisations that share our vision for the future of healthcare, we are increasing Ada’s impact in developing economies, and moving forward our mission to make quality, personalised care a reality for everyone.” 

Ada and Fondation Botnar: Bringing AI-powered Healthcare to East Africa and Romania

By partnering with Fondation Botnar, Ada will become the first health guidance app to feature Swahili language integration, making its health assessment technology available to more than 100 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the latest development in Ada’s ongoing mission to make its technology available to anyone with access to a smartphone; this year, Ada also integrated Spanish, Portuguese and French languages. Through its work with Fondation Botnar, Ada will also integrate Romanian to its growing list of languages to complement Fondation Botnar’s existing social inclusion work to provide scalable support measures for vulnerable children and their families in Romania.

The new Swahili and Romanian language integrations will be deployed initially in East Africa and Romania, respectively, focusing on families and adolescents in areas with limited access to healthcare. Within the first three years, the initiative is projected to reach two million people in Romania and East Africa. This partnership is part of Fondation Botnar’s focus on exploring innovative approaches to support and empower health workers, extending their knowledge with AI-enabled solutions such as Ada, so they can better assess and guide patients when a doctor isn’t immediately available.

“The global shortage of health workers has a severe impact on children and adolescents,” said Stefan Germann, CEO, Fondation Botnar. “Our partnership with Ada will focus on addressing this issue in East Africa and Romania by using AI to help adolescents and families access high-quality health guidance for their physical and mental health. The project will also provide valuable insights to Fondation Botnar and Ada as we look to expand this innovative approach to other low- and middle-income countries.”

Ada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Evaluating the Impact of AI-based Self-Assessment 

Ada will be carrying out research to explore the efficacy of AI-powered self-assessment technology in recommending specific diagnostic tests and improving patient outcomes for Foundation priority geographies and diseases. Ada will analyse millions of self-assessment cases from Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and India to identify the diagnostic tests that, when combined with rigorous and accurate AI, could deliver the biggest impact in lower and middle-income countries.

By identifying the diagnostic tests needed to better support healthcare workers at the point-of-care -- for example, malaria and tuberculosis -- AI-powered self-assessment in combination with more accessible objective measurements may significantly improve healthcare outcomes for patients in these areas, as well as potentially limiting the spread of disease epidemics through early identification. 

¹ http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/193371513169798347/2017-global-monitoring-report.pdf

² https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/publications/files/wup2014-highlights.pdf

Notes to Editors:

1. About Ada Health
Ada Health is on a mission to bring the future of personalized care to everyone. Founded in 2011, by a team of doctors, scientists and engineers, Ada offers an AI-powered health platform that is helping millions of people around the world understand their health and navigate to the appropriate care. Our sophisticated artificial intelligence technology also supports clinical decision making and enables payers and providers to deliver quality, more effective healthcare. Ada launched globally in 2016 and has been the number 1 medical app in over 130 countries. You can find more information and contact details at www.ada.com.

Ada appointed Hila Azadzoy as Managing Director, Global Health Initiative, in April 2018 to oversee the programme. 

2. About Fondation Botnar
Fondation Botnar is a Swiss foundation established in 2003 with the core purpose of improving the health and wellbeing of children and young people in growing secondary cities around the world. To achieve this, Fondation Botnar acts as a catalyst, connecting diverse partners and investing in solutions that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and digital innovation. 

3. Media Contact
Bethany Dufresne
Head of Communications
Ada Health
press@ada.com

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Contact Information

Bethany Dufresne

Head of Communications

Ada Health

press@ada.com