Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington made headlines by unveiling their intention to launch an AI-driven health coach aimed at aiding individuals in achieving their wellness and mental health objectives. The announcement portrayed this upcoming app as a transformative force in the healthcare arena.
However, the creators of Thumos Care, an AI-focused “health optimization platform,” have already been addressing the very challenges that Altman and Huffington claim their new application will tackle.
Baquir, a primary care provider based in New York, co-founded Thumos with her partner, Shan Rizvi, with the goal of remedying what she referred to as the broken “sick care system.”
In an interview, Baquir emphasized the importance of proactive healthcare, stating that many health issues are preventable or manageable if addressed early. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 further highlighted the significance of timely healthcare intervention.
Thumos, a self-funded startup, aims to bridge the gap between medical visits and provide individuals with a comprehensive understanding of their health status and future health trajectory.
The platform offers users a dashboard displaying their biomarkers in a simplified format, enabling them to grasp their health status at a glance through plain language explanations and color-coded indicators for different bodily systems.
Users can engage in conversations, via text or voice, with an AI-powered bot to discuss their health data, seek advice, and receive personalized recommendations for improving their health outcomes.
In scenarios where a patient receives a pre-diabetes diagnosis from a doctor, Thumos steps in to provide continuous support and guidance during the interim period between medical appointments.
Thumos Care, currently operating on a pay-what-you-can model, empowers patients to play an active role in their healthcare journey, offering them agency over their well-being beyond periodic doctor visits.
Unlike Altman and Huffington’s Thrive AI Health, which relies on user-uploaded medical and lifestyle data, Thumos takes a privacy-focused, hands-off approach to behavior change interventions.
Rizvi emphasized that Thumos does not engage in constant user tracking for behavior modification and has prioritized privacy compliance by partnering with Delve to adhere to HIPAA guidelines.
The founders of Thumos challenge the notion of incessantly nudging users towards behavior change, emphasizing a more respectful and user-driven approach to health improvement.