Arkangel AI reaches the finals of the Fundación MAPFRE Social Innovation Awards

About 56% of deaths worldwide are due to late-detected diseases that, if diagnosed in time, could have been prevented. The high volume of patients, the emergence of new diseases and the high burden on the healthcare system is leading to patient care that is increasingly briefer, less personalized, insufficient and, on many occasions, inaccurate. So much so that the Spanish Royal National Academy of Medicine has already warned that most people will receive an incorrect or late diagnosis at least once in their lives, sometimes with serious consequences. As of today, it is estimated that 12 million Spaniards are misdiagnosed each year, and 15% of the world's health expenditure is earmarked for solving these problems.

Under this premise, BHH member Arkangel AI was created, a Colombian platform that transforms data sets in less than 20 seconds to help doctors, pharmacists and all the stakeholders in the healthcare system to optimize processes and offer patients early diagnoses. This reduces mortality and achieves results that are 10 times more profitable, 10 times faster and 20 times more scalable. The technology, which is capable of achieving 95% accuracy, improves quality of care, operations, admissions and patient treatment.

The app allows healthcare companies to create their own algorithms to help them make decisions in real time. Once the patient's ID number has been entered into the system, it issues a report with the probability of having one of the pathologies recognized by the model, as well as an explanation, based on the data that the entity in question has previously input.

By 2030, Arkangel AI aims to have saved more than one billion people from preventable diseases.

Early detection to avoid premature deaths

Early detection is a crucial factor in controlling possible diseases and preventing complications, even in people who are still asymptomatic. It is estimated that there are up to one million people with diabetes who are unaware that they have the disease, and they may be diagnosed up to 12 years later. In this period of time, half of them develop complications (such as blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular problems and amputations) that could be avoided if the illness were addressed in time.

In terms of cancer, there is a greater probability of successful treatment, cure and survival if the diagnosis is made early. This would also save millions of euros in reduced chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery.

There are also more than three million undiagnosed patients suffering high blood pressure. In fact, one out of every three deaths in Spain is due to cardiovascular disease, making it the leading cause of death and hospitalization. According to the Heart Foundation, of the 9,000 million euros that these diseases cost the State (7% of total healthcare expenditure), 70% is attributable to risk factors that are preventable.

Personal losses behind the project

The seed of Arkangel AI can be traced back to the personal lives of its founders. After losing several family members in less than three months due to wrong and late diagnoses, in 2020, Laura Velásquez and Jose Zea decided to develop a solution that would eventually put an end to this problem. As Laura explains, "The healthcare system has a huge flaw when it comes to treating the patient in time and saving their life. Currently, 35.8 million people die around the world each year because they are not diagnosed in time. Arkangel AI demonstrates that data science and artificial intelligence can help us deliver more humane medicine and raise the survival rate to 75%."

Arkangel AI's team, comprising 18 members who are experts in data science, health science and software, has deployed its platform in more than 300 hospitals, generating savings of more than 1.7 million euros and more than 35,000 hours in healthcare processes. By the end of 2023, these campaigns had already benefited over 68 million people. Its clients include Unicef, Sanofi, Novartis, AstraZeneca, as well as other pharmaceutical companies, and it is present throughout Latin America, Europe and Brazil.

Now, Arkangel AI is the Latin American finalist in the Health Improvement and Digital Technology (e-Health) category in the seventh edition of the Fundación MAPFRE Social Innovation Awards.

Awards to change the World

The call for applications in this seventh edition has received 379 initiatives developed by scientists, researchers, university students and business schools.

The goal of the Fundación MAPFRE Social Innovation Awards is to promote the growth of proposals that represent the essence of social innovation: talent, capacity for transformation, commitment and the need to improve the environment in which we live.

The final of the awards will be held on May 23 in Madrid, where twelve projects from Spain, Germany, Malta, Chile, Colombia, Brazil and the US will be taking part.