Our new AI assistant – and how we got here

By

Katie Knapp, Product Lead

Nov 19, 2024 • 6 min read

Today, we're so excited to announce the launch of our new AI assistant, a milestone that represents the next step in empowering patients with their own health data.

When I joined PicnicHealth four years ago, I was inspired by the untapped potential of medical records—in particular, what could happen if we put this data directly in the hands of patients to help them navigate their care and, if they choose, contribute their de-identified data to research.

Over these years, we've delivered on much of the original vision that attracted me, but I couldn't have anticipated how two key trends—expanded virtual care and the rise of generative AI—would shape our trajectory and bring us to where we are now.

Today I want to take a moment to share the story of how we got here, and tell you a little more about our AI assistant and how it fits into the broader ecosystem of tools and services we've created to empower patients in their healthcare journey.

Virtual Care + GenAI - A Winning Combination

Rewinding to early 2021, we were on the heels of the pandemic. Seeing the newfound embrace of telemedicine, we saw an opportunity to develop a novel virtual care model that gives patients uniquely personalized insights on the basis of complete records in a simple, digital format. Having spent my early career making clinical-grade genetic tests directly available to patients, I saw how combining easy access to data about yourself with appropriate clinical guidance resulted in empowered patients. I wanted to do the same thing at PicnicHealth, but focused on the insights we could generate from a true universal record.

Meanwhile, our team was also developing LLMD - a generative AI model specifically designed to extract insights from medical records. Over the last few years it’s been trained on millions of pages of clinically-annotated EHR data, and fine-tuned to outperform top frontier and industry models when it comes to making sense of medical records.

Now we’re at an exciting inflection point where we are bringing the benefits of these forces directly to patients. Earlier this year, we announced our Virtual Clinic, where personalized care plans and preventive care support are delivered by our dedicated clinical team -- including physicians, nurses, and medical assistants -- using patients' longitudinal medical records as the foundation. Today, we’re excited to announce our smart health assistant, which puts the power of generative AI directly in the hands of patients through a re-imagined product experience, and by surfacing insights and creating efficiencies for our virtual clinic providers.

This combination gives patients the best of both worlds - quick answers and insights with the help of AI, and clinicians ready to support them when they need to go a step further- all backed by a complete, universal record.

Introducing Picnic - Your Smart Health Assistant

Over the last couple years, we’ve seen countless examples of how AI is reshaping healthcare, from physician scribe co-pilots to diagnostics and real-world evidence. But what has been largely missing is something that puts this technology directly in the hands of the millions of us navigating the healthcare system as patients.

That’s where we come in.

“Picnic”, our new health assistant, simplifies your care by unifying your medical records and helping you understand your health so you can stay proactive. It collects and curates your key medical information into a single, unified record, helps you understand your health by simplifying complex medical information and answering questions, and streamlines care by helping maintain a unified care plan.

Here are a few of the things that it can do:

AI Search: A new way to interact with your medical history

“What was that dark spot on my arm called?”

“When did I start on metformin?”

“ Latest blood pressure measurement”

These are all things that you can now ask Picnic, and you’ll get back a concise AI summary, with links to the relevant doctors’ notes, test results and measurements from your medical records. For those familiar, think of it like Perplexity, but on your own medical history.

Smart Pinboards: Custom views based on your key health issues

Earlier this year we launched Pinboards, which let you create a curated view of important records. Now our assistant can create pinboards in a single click from suggestions based on your records, by collating the most relevant records related to your journey, like imaging, procedures, and specialist visits.

Smart Highlights: Translating doctor-speak into people-speak

Tap on any word or phrase within your medical records and Picnic will provide a simple explanation of what it means. It even takes some of your medical history into account so it can provide more personalized context.

Picnic is more than just a set of features. It is a personal assistant and navigator that goes with you on your health journey. It ensures that you have your important records readily available, you understand every detail, and nothing slips through the cracks. Picnic provides clarity into your health journey, keeps you informed, facilitates better conversations with doctors, ultimately resulting in better care.

This is just the beginning

Our AI assistant is available in beta, and while we’re excited to share it with you, we view this as just the beginning. We’ve integrated robust monitoring and clinical oversight into our approach, ensuring that the assistant provides trustworthy support. We look forward to continuing to enhance its capabilities with a focus on accuracy, usability, and value to patients.

For those interested, our product is available through a yearly subscription, and for free for those in active PicnicHealth studies. Once you have records on our platform, they’re yours to keep for life. Learn more at picnichealth.com/care.

We're eager to hear your feedback as we work to make this AI assistant the best it can be. Thank you for joining us on this journey—there’s so much more to come!

We know that every person's story is unique and deserves to be heard.

Join our early breast cancer registry to be counted and share your story with research.

Create a List

List the names of all the doctors, hospitals, and other facilities your loved one visits regularly, along with those they have visited in the past. Try to go back as far as you can, striving for at least the last 5-10 years, but do your best. Even if you can’t remember them all, having a strong baseline can help you quickly identify gaps in records.

Ensure You Have the Appropriate Legal Status

It is important to make sure that you are fully empowered to make decisions on behalf of your loved one with Alzheimer’s. Your relationship status with the patient may not be enough to legally give you access to your loved one's medical information. It is a good idea to talk to an expert about securing special legal status, such as Power of Attorney (POA), a legal document that allows an individual to name someone as their decision maker should they no longer be able to make decisions on their own.

Gather and Organize the Medical Records in One Place

It’s important to have all of your loved one’s medical records together in one spot. This makes it much easier for you and your loved one’s physicians to accurately map the patient’s medical journey and more easily share information between doctors. Fortunately, tools exist to make record management and access simple. A free resource like PicnicHealth helps you collect and organize all of this information. PicnicHealth’s intuitive timeline allows you to pinpoint data across the medical history, eliminating your need for keeping heavy binders filled with paper records or keeping track of multiple software portal logins.

Review the Medical Records to be an Informed Advocate

The better you understand your loved one's medical history, the better you can advocate on their behalf. Access and understanding of this information will help you to ask informed questions with physicians. Through regular communication backed by the data in the medical records, you can help your loved one’s care team develop a more successful care plan.