Intron Well being, a Nigeria AI firm that gives speech-to-text transcription instruments for healthcare staff, has raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed funding spherical. The startup will use the capital injection to rent extra workers, deepen its analysis efforts, and strengthen its cloud-native and on-prem capabilities.

Launched in 2020 by Dr Tobi Olatunji, Intron Well being helps healthcare professionals enter medical data by changing speech into textual content. This answer is vital as a result of docs in lots of African nations attend to lots of of sufferers every day and have a variety of paperwork to cope with. Intron Well being cuts the time docs reduce time spend on writing a affected person’s prescription by way of its product. Docs can enter sufferers’ medical data, give prescriptions, and generate affected person experiences by voice instructions.

Intron Well being claims it has helped cut back the turnaround time for radiology reporting on the College of Faculty Hospital, Ibadan, from 48 hours to twenty minutes.

“We’re bettering effectivity and well being outcomes and positively impacting hospital funds,” Olatunji instructed TechCabal. 

Whereas AI’s utility on the continent has been affected by insufficient information, Intron Well being’s speech-to-text AI transcription software accounts for a lot of African accents.  Olatunji, who has over a decade of deep studying expertise, says the datasets are skilled on over 3.5 million audio clips throughout African languages (288 accents). 

“We made algorithms that practice how the mannequin responds to dominant and minority accents.”

Intron Well being is engaged on a multilingual speech-to-text product to assist docs talk with sufferers who don’t perceive English.  “We’ll be deploying the English to Hausa mannequin first within the coming months,” Olatunji stated.

Intron Well being competes with Helium Well being (Nigeria) and Terragon Well being (Kenya), which offer Digital Medical Data and Hospital Administration Data System (EMR/HMIS) options.

“We’re not making an attempt to distinguish ourselves, we’re solely making an attempt to companion with our competitors,” Olatunji stated. Intron Well being presents its speech-to-text recognition software program to different digital medical file companies. 

The corporate cares for greater than 56,000 sufferers presently throughout its companions with over 30 private and non-private hospitals throughout Nigeria and Kenya—together with the College of Faculty Hospital, Ibadan, Aminu Kano Instructing Hospital (AKTH) Kano, Babcock Instructing Hospital Ogun, and Meridian Well being Group Nairobi.

Its seed spherical was led by Microtraction, with participation from Plug and Play Ventures, Jaza Rift Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Africa Well being Ventures, OpenseedVC, Pi Campus, Alumni Angel, and Baker Bridge Capital.

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