Empirical 2.0: your personal healthcare assistant
Baymax—the personal healthcare assistant from Big Hero 6—may be closer to reality than we think. While LLMs have already passed medical licensing exams, one missing piece has been grounding in objective, physical biomarkers. We think the combination of broadly-available consumer devices like Apple Watch (which generates 240,000 data points per year and has multiple FDA clearances) and health information exchanges (which offer objective outcomes, such as hospitalizations or ER visits) make it possible to ground medical AI in objective physical data.
Today we’re launching Empirical 2.0, which is a step in this direction. Empirical Health 2.0 transforms your biometric data and personal goals into a customized health plan. To ensure safety, your care plan must always be reviewed with a real, human doctor, who can order necessary labs, referrals, or prescriptions. Medical care through Empirical is now available to 200 million people across 27 states.
Examples of how Empirical can help you be healthy
Here are a few scenarios that show how Empirical uses your health data to create an actionable, step-by-step care plan:
-
Let’s say you have low deep sleep. Empirical will analyze your Apple Watch sleep stages and bedtime patterns to design a protocol to assess sleep hygiene , risk of sleep apnea , and any need for further testing, reviewed by a doctor.
-
Want to increase VO2Max? Empirical crafts an exercise protocol with Norwegian 4x4s, Zone 2 training, and strength training to improve VO2Max.
-
Suffering from Long Covid, Dysautonomia, or POTS? Empirical creates a plan to evaluate your symptoms. It starts with taking orthostatic vitals using a heart rate monitor and a blood pressure cuff (essentially, an at-home version of the $1,900 tilt table test).). We also use your ECG and blood test results to rule out other causes of tachycardia. Based on the results, Empirical designs a personalized care plan that may include medication, progressive exercise (based on the science behind the CHOP protocol), and hydration strategies.
Care plans may involve additional AI-generated diagnostic steps; to ensure safety and prevent unnecessary medical costs, those are locked behind an appointment with a real human doctor.
Here’s whats new in Empirical Health 2.0
In addition to care plans, we’ve completely redesigned the app and added new features. Here’s a complete list of what’s new:
-
App redesign. The visual design of the app is completely refreshed.
-
AI-generated care plans. As described above, Empirical will distill your data and your health goals into an actionable care plan. While AI generates the plan, a real doctor reviews it with you (ensuring accuracy) and can order necessary labs, referrals, or prescriptions.
-
Support for blood pressure cuffs : connect a third party blood pressure cuff in order to manage hypertension. Our hypertension care plan covers exercise, nutrition, and medication (if prescribed by a doctor).
-
Benchmarks. All metrics—resting heart rate, HRV, VO2Max, deep sleep %, REM sleep %, oxygen saturation, etc—are benchmarked against medical norms. We’ll also tell you your percentile, so you can see at a glance where you stand.
-
Medical care is available in 27 US states covering 200 million people —up from just 4 states at launch.
-
New workout templates to improve VO2Max.
Why does this matter?
We’re facing a massive primary care shortage. Simply providing recommended preventive health would require 27 hours per day from the average primary care doctor—clearly an impossible task.
We think a personal healthcare assistant, paired with a doctor, is one compelling way forward. Rather than being a literal life-size robot, our version of Baymax is a friendly app on our phone and watch that integrates with health sensors and helps you proactively manage your day to day health. Try it today by downloading Empirical Health for Apple Watch on the App Store.