Documentation is one of the most demanding and time-consuming administrative tasks — in healthcare, this time could be better spent attending to patients. During consultations, therapists often rely on notetaking or recording devices to capture conversations. Unfortunately, this can lead to inaccuracies and incomplete reports. Moreover, patients may view notetaking as disruptive, hindering the natural flow of conversation and relationship-building.
Leveraging their experience in building artificial intelligence (AI) solutions such as the recently discontinues voicebot, PlaynVoice’s founder Samuel Siegfried and Dominic Spalinger and Jacky Casas have re-established itself as a software provider for the healthcare sector to help practitioners to concentrate on their patients. “After ten pilot projects, we identified technical limitations but quickly recognized the potential of our AI for documenting conversations. A successful pilot test confirmed the efficiency of our software”, commented the startup. Joining the founding trio is Raffaela Witting, a licensed psychotherapist with more than 10 years of experience in institutions such as Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Zürich (PUK). She will support the Zurich-based company in advancing the newly launched platform.
The AI-supported software automatically transcribes verbal conversations between patients and doctors and reliably generates structured reports. Not only does the app promise ease of use, but it also helps increase efficiency and saves up to five hours of work per week. This is especially useful during intake, anamnesis, and diagnostics conversations. With the initial application in the field of mental medicine and health, the company has since September this year attracted around a dozen paying customers including individual practices, group practices and larger institutions such as the Autismus Zentrum, Institut für Aarbeitsmedizin, and Klinik im Hasel. More than 150 experts use the product, allowing the company to process more than 1500 hours of conversation a month, growing 50% month over month.
Users confirm saving up to one hour per day, or 50% of report writing time. Nadine Gronewold, Psychotherapeutin, ifa Institut für Arbeitsmedizin said “PlaynVoice significantly simplifies and enhances my work. The content of therapy sessions is summarized very precisely on a factual level, allowing me to focus more deeply on the nuances of the conversation and aspects of the therapeutic relationship during my documentation time, while also experiencing a substantial reduction in workload.”
GDPR-compliance and confidentiality guaranteed
Inspired by similar systems in the US, PlaynVoice fully focuses on the needs of Switzerland and meets all national legal requirements. Besides English, the app can also process Swiss German and French, making it the only software of its kind in the world. The app is compliant with national and European data protection laws, including GDPR. To ensure confidentiality, user information and audio recordings are not stored, transcripts are anonymized, and all data is stored exclusively on servers in Switzerland.
The bootstrapped startup is already gaining traction - most recently it was awarded a prize by ImpactLabs, the startup support program of the University of Applied Sciences North-Western Switzerland (FHNW) and a grant by the Innovation Booster Digital Health Nation powered by Innosuisse.
(RAN)