Grab your phone for a quick 30 seconds selfie video, and you have given it enough information to check health vitals. That includes blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, stress levels, heart rate variability and many others. All of these and 10 other health vitals with medical-grade accuracy.
Can you believe it?
Now imagine doing it over 50 times a day. And the results are automatically fed to your personal AI health engine to monitor your health vitals, identify your health status and notify your healthcare provider if any signs of poor health are detected.
Also, imagine the AI health engine notifying you of probable health conditions like high temperature indicating flu, fever or even COVID.
Believe me! I am not joking around.
That’s part of Binah.ai’s vision. Binah.ai is an Israel based health tech startup that combines the power of high-end artificial intelligence with low-end cameras built on your device (phone, laptop, tablet, or even smart TV) to monitor health continuously.
Tell me more about Binah.ai.
Binah.ai is a video-based software-only solution. It can extract real-time health data from a 30-sec selfie video using signal processing and analyse it using complex AI algorithms. Currently, Binah.ai can measure 8 health vitals like- Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, Parasympathetic Activity, Sympathetic Stress, Oxygen Saturation, Blood Pressure, Pulse Respiratory Quotient (PRQ) , Respiration Rate
In the near future, the company aims to measure blood glucose levels, blood alcohol levels, haemoglobin levels and several other health metrics using the phone’s camera.
Binah’s vision is to make basic health and wellness services universally accessible for everyone everywhere. The company’s headquarter is situated in Israel, and it has offices in the US and Japan.
How does Binah.ai work?
Binah works on the basis of Photoplethysmography (PPG) technology. It is a technology that analyses your health metrics from the light reflected from your blood vessels.
Binah extracts real-time health data in two ways- one is contactless, and the other is contact based.
- Contactless health data extraction using rPPG
rPPG stands for remote photoplethysmography. Here, all you need to do is look into your phone’s camera. Binah analyses the light reflection intensity from your cheeks using advanced AI and deep learning algorithms like signal processing and computer vision technology to generate medical-grade accurate results.
- Contact based health data extraction using PPG
Here, you need to place your finger on the phone’s rear camera. Binah analyses the light reflected from your blood vessels using complex AI algorithms. Contact based extraction is useful in case you are in a dark room.
The best part about using Binah is-
- You do not need additional wearables or devices.
- You can access it through your phone, tablet, laptop or even smart TV and smart mirror.
- It can be accessed through a web browser as well.
- You need not download any application.
- You can access it offline. Internet connection is not required.
- All your health data is stored on your device. You can opt to share it if you want.
Is Binah.ai accurate?
Binah’s technology is said to have medical-grade accuracy. As per the company’s own testing, its readings are accurate to about 8 to 11 standard deviations.
According to the universal standard for validating devices, such devices can be used as self-assessment or home care tools. Binah is working to improve its accuracy to be approved for clinical usage. Currently, it can be used as a self-assessment tool.
Few things to note-
- Binah.ai technology is not FDA approved yet.
- The company advises not to use it as a medical or clinical device. It is meant for self-assessment only.
How can I get access to Binah.ai?
Binah.ai is a B2B company. Rather than bringing the technology to the direct market, Binah.ai licences it to other healthcare players to build on it. It works with insurance companies to help them improve their customer experience.
- Manage underwriting and claims seamlessly.
- To provide better wellness services to its customers, etc.
You can learn more about how Binah helps insurance companies here.
Apart from insurance companies, Binah has use cases in
- Telemedicine
- Remote patient monitoring
- Primary care
- Personal and corporate wellness
- Preventive medicine
- Virtual trials
- Nursing homes
- In-car wellness and many more.
Currently, over 7 million people globally have Binah technology running on their devices. The technology is used by global organisations like Sompo, a large insurance company of Japan, Montreal, a hospital to monitor covid patients, Momentum, one of South Africa’s insurance-based financial services groups.
In India, Binah.ai is working with HDFC Ergo and is in talks with ICICI. HDFC Ergo is currently working on integrating Binah with one of its health insurance products for STP- Straight Through Processing. It also has plans to integrate Binah for its underwriting and claims settlements process in near future.
To know more and avail of an online demo, connect with Binah.ai at their website or email.
Who founded Binah.ai? And when?
David Maman is the CEO and founder of Binah.ai. Along with his two co-founders, Konstantin Gedalin and Michael Markson, David Maman founded Binah in 2016.
David Maman is a dedicated entrepreneur with a fascination for artificial intelligence and cyber security. Binah is David’s 13th startup, and he is proud of the success it is seeing.
In a world where healthcare availability is limited and healthcare costs are rising, the aim of building Binah is to make healthcare monitoring universally accessible to everyone everywhere. And this stays the company’s vision today, tomorrow and years to come.
Challenges Binah faces
- Accuracy of health vitals
Binah is currently a self-assessment tool and not a clinical and medical device. Nor is it approved by the FDA. Bringing in accuracy requires high and quality data collection to develop AI and deep learning machines.
- Data privacy
Privacy is a major concern when it comes to anything related to health data. Detailed health vitals data holds high value. It can be used for targeting ads and may invade patients’ privacy if in the wrong hands.
Binah assures that all the health data is stored in the user’s device and nowhere on the web. And users do not need an active internet connection to measure their vitals. However, when it comes to health data, it is difficult to gain people’s trust.
How can Binah disrupt the health monitoring space?
As of today, the world’s main issues can be divided into two categories: the availability of health care and the cost of healthcare.
Around half of the world’s population are unable to avail of essential health services. And those who can are left waiting. The number of physicians available is very less when compared to the demand for healthcare services. To add to the existing fire, healthcare costs are on the rise. Approximately 100 million people are pushed to poverty due to healthcare expenses.
Binah aims to disrupt the healthcare space by addressing health availability and reducing health costs. With Binah’s technology, health and wellness can be monitored through video of a person’s face. This technology can be leveraged within the healthcare industry to provide a myriad of benefits-Extend care outreach, reduce time and costs, assist remote monitoring and a lot more.
What are Binah.ai’s future plans?
Binah is currently working on improving its technology to measure other health metrics. Like blood alcohol levels, blood glucose levels, haemoglobin levels, cholesterol levels and a few others. It has plans to be a one-stop for measuring 20 health metrics.
It is also looking towards using the ability of the phone’s microphone and how it can help in picking up breathing behaviour that can be used with heart patterns.
Yes, they do have many plans for the future.
Binah aims to change the way we approach health monitoring. Its vision is to make basic health and wellness services universally accessible for everyone everywhere, and we see them working hard towards it.
I must say, Binah is looking to disrupt the health monitoring space with cheaper, accessible and accurate analysis.
