ObEN Creates Healthcare Avatar for MedStar Health Heart Disease Study

Personal AI of nurse to aid in at-home monitoring of patients suffering from heart failure

Pasadena, CA/Hyattsville, MD (March 4, 2019) — ObEN Inc., the artificial intelligence (AI) company creating Personal AI (PAI) technology to revolutionize digital interactions, is pleased to announce it is working with MedStar Health Research Institute for a study on the use of Personal AI (PAI) healthcare assistants for patients suffering from heart failure. For the study, ObEN has created a medical health assistant app, called PAI Care, to help monitor patients of heart failure.

Under the direction of the principal investigator Nawar Shara, PhD, Director of the Department of Biostatistics and Biomedical Informatics at MedStar Health Research Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University, the study will investigate the use of voice-activated and avatar-enabled technologies for monitoring heart failure patients at home and whether this monitoring improves health and recovery outcomes. The study will include patients interacting with Tara, an intelligent 3D Healthcare Assistant Avatar created using ObEN’s PAI technology, via an app on a tablet.

“Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition that impacts millions of people worldwide and is increasing in incidence,”said Dr. Shara. “Hospitalization is a major driver of treatment costs and adversely affects the quality of life and outcomes for heart failure patients. Prevention of heart failure hospital readmission is an area of unmet need. This study leverages voice and avatar-enabled artificial intelligence technologies to empower patients to better manage their condition.”

For this four-month study, ObEN’s technology will fuel the voice, appearance, and animation of the healthcare assistant avatar in PAI Care as well as the chatbot feature through which the patients can interact with the PAI. Under a daily schedule, participants in the study will answer a series of health and wellness questions that will help the study collect data and also monitor the health of the patients.

ObEN is also providing additional technology for a related-study by MedStar Health Research Institute, using voice-enabled healthcare support. This study is made possible with grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) through the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (GHUCCTS).

“ObEN’s technology can potentially create a way to provide triage, management, and routine health reminders while alleviating pain points within the healthcare industry including patient monitoring, EHS systems management, and geriatric care and companionship,” said Nikhil Jain, CEO of ObEN. “With the healthcare industry facing rising costs, insufficient resources and a lack of manpower around the world, we believe PAI can serve as the basis for solutions to the most pressing issues in healthcare and provide better access to service for all people.”

Using ObEN’s proprietary full-stack AI technology, ObEN can create personalized, intelligent 3D avatars that look and sound like the user, can learn to behave like the user, and even learn skills the user does not possess, like speaking in multiple languages. ObEN has also adopted the Project PAI blockchain protocol, an open source decentralized public utility blockchain, to secure and authenticate the PAIs and the associated user data, allowing people to gain more ownership of their own digital identity. For healthcare applications, ObEN enables the creation of Nurse and Doctor PAIs that can be individualized to the real professionals providing care to their patients.

To learn more about Personal AI technology visit oben.com

About ObEN
ObEN is an artificial intelligence (AI) company developing Personal AI technology that revolutionizes personal digital interaction, enabling never before possible social and virtual interactions. The company’s technology allows users to create intelligent 3D avatars that look, sound, and behave like them. Deployed on the Project PAI blockchain, ObEN’s Personal AI (PAI) technology enables users to create, use, and manage their own PAI on a secure, decentralized platform. Founded in 2014, ObEN is a K11, Tencent, Softbank Ventures Korea and HTC Vive X portfolio company and is located at Idealab in Pasadena, California. To learn more about ObEN, please visit oben.com.

About MedStar Health Research Institute
MedStar Health Research Institute is the research arm of MedStar Health, the largest healthcare provider in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., region. MHRI provides scientific, administrative, and regulatory support for research programs throughout the MedStar Health system. MHRI’s expertise includes translational research into disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. These programs complement the key clinical services and teaching programs in the 10 MedStar hospitals and other MedStar entities. For more information, visit MedStarResearch.org.

About MedStar Health
MedStar Health is a not-for-profit health system dedicated to caring for people in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., region while advancing the practice of medicine through education, innovation, and research. MedStar’s 30,000 associates, 6,000 affiliated physicians, 10 hospitals, ambulatory care and urgent care centers, and the MedStar Health Research Institute are recognized regionally and nationally for excellence in medical care. As the medical education and clinical partner of Georgetown University, MedStar trains more than 1,100 medical residents annually. MedStar Health’s patient-first philosophy combines care, compassion, and clinical excellence with an emphasis on customer service. For more information, visit MedStarHealth.org.