Piction health, an app developed by Susan Conover, has immense potential to vary the way in which skin conditions are diagnosed in the longer term. The app uses machine learning to assist physicians in identifying skin conditions and ensuring appropriate treatment.
Conover has first-hand experience of the repercussions of delayed diagnosis. On the age of twenty-two, she desired to get an authority opinion on an unusual mole. Nevertheless, she was told that the wait time to see a dermatologist could be three months.
When she finally did get the appointment, the mole was removed and sent for biopsy. The mole turned out to be cancerous in the outcomes. Worryingly, on the time, nobody could say with certainty that cancer hadn’t spread to other parts of her body.
Fortunately, the expansion was restricted to 1 spot. This life-changing encounter then sowed the seeds for Conover’s determination to launch her own startup named Piction Health.
Talking about her experience, Conover said, “It was just a extremely scary experience. I consider myself very lucky because I learned at MIT that there is a huge variety of individuals with skin problems every 12 months, two-thirds of those people go into primary care to get help, and about half of those cases are misdiagnosed because these providers haven’t got as much training in dermatology.”
Piction Health had a straightforward start as a mobile app that focused on recognizing melanoma from images. Soon, Conover realized the app’s potential and expanded its range to other skin conditions like pimples, eczema, shingles, etc.
“All these other conditions are those which are often referred to dermatology, and dermatologists turn into frustrated because they’d prefer to be spending time on skin cancer cases or other conditions that need their help,” Conover said. “We realized we would have liked to pivot away from skin cancer with the intention to help skin cancer patients see the dermatologist faster.”
“Loads of people do not realize that it’s really hard to see a dermatologist — it may take three to 6 months — and with the pandemic, it’s never been a worse time to attempt to see a dermatologist,” she added.
The app allows a physician to take a photograph of the patient’s skin condition after which displays an array of images showing similar skin presentations. In response to Conover, Piction is in a position to bring down time taken by physicians to evaluate a patient by about 30 percent.
Thus far, the app has been utilized by greater than 50 physicians, and the corporate has entered into partnerships with many organizations.
Piction Health is targeting to launch several additional pilots this 12 months. In the longer term, Conover is looking forward to expanding the scope of the app to discover and adjudge wounds and infectious diseases.
Also, the corporate is working on bringing its app to doctors operating in low-resource situations by partnering with non-profit groups.
“This has potential to turn into a full diagnostic tool in the longer term,” Conover noted. “I just don’t desire anyone to feel the way in which I felt after I had my first diagnosis, and I need other people like me to have the ability to get the care they need at the appropriate time and move on with their lives.”