Dr. Cory Kidd is the founder and CEO of Catalia Health. Dr. Kidd has been working in healthcare technology for nearly two decades. The focus of his work has been applying innovative technologies towards solving large-scale healthcare challenges. His previous company, Intuitive Automata, created interactive coaches for weight loss. Prior to this, Dr. Kidd received his M.S. and Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab in human-robot interaction. While there, he conducted studies that showed the psychological and clinical advantages of using a physical robot over screen-based interactions.

With over two decades of experience in healthcare technology focused on innovations and solutions to major healthcare challenges, Dr. Kidd is uniquely qualified to make an impact in the patient/user experience. He has successfully launched other health and tech oriented companies as a veteran of the industry. Dr. Kidd received a M.S. and Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab, specializing in human-robot interaction.

His primary objective while there was to demonstrate how there were obvious clinical, as well as psychological, advantages to using physical robots instead of traditional screen-based methods. While the front end allows for easy patient interfacing, the back end flows to doctors and health professionals who are working to monitor the overall progress of these chronic care patients. From arthritis to kidney issues and more, Catalia Health’s robotic tech products deliver outstanding results for patient and doctor.

As the health technology CEO explains, the robot elicits a stronger long-term engagement with patients. The fact that the robot actually looks at you creates a much deeper psychological connection with patients, which drives them to be more involved with their own health and the management of their condition over long periods of time.

Catalia Health’s robots (know individually as Mabu) are built on a set of artificial intelligence algorithms that draw on psychology to form the conversations with patients. As it is not scripted, but interaction based, the experience feels interactive and real, and, ironically, more human.

Much like a physician tailors the needed medical information and delivers it in a way that is best suited for an individual, Catalia Health’s robots also interact and respond with patients in a manner that creates a comfortable experience.

Catalia Health’s platform‘s integrated technology learns about a patient’s overall personality, and their interests, as well as any particular treatment difficulties or challenges they have had over time. This enables the Mabu robot to engage in conversations that are unique to each patient, based on established behavioral models of psychology designed to promote significant behavioral change for improved well-being.

As Mabu communicates daily, patients are much more likely to manage their treatment better. Dr. Kidd gives a detailed analysis on the topics of symptoms, side effects, and psychosocial issues, which are three major components of the AI based care management. And as the old modified proverb says, the proof is in the pudding, and this is certainly evidenced by Catalia Health’s data from their experimentation and market testing. In multiple testing situations in which three groups of patients were told to use either the paper log system to record and manage their care, the Catalia Health software on a computer, or the system integrated into an actual robot, the robot was strongly preferred, by far. Some people even tried to negotiate to keep their test robot longer, which is about as glowing an endorsement as you could hope for. The robots clearly have won.

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