Axona Labs this week announced the launch of Marcus Health.
The Vancouver-based healthcare innovator says Marcus Health is a companion app powered by artificial intelligence that is designed to help patients and families better understand, retain, and act on medical information across appointments.
The app was developed by Dr. Sina Marzoughi and Dr. Ankur Banerjee, practicing neurologists and co-founders of the Apollo Institute of Medicine.
“We created Marcus Health to help patients better navigate their care and the decisions they need to make around their health,” says chief executive officer Marzoughi.
“As practicing clinicians, we see that even the most thoughtful conversations can be difficult to carry forward after an appointment,” the doctor notes. “The system is built around individual encounters, but patients need a reliable way to revisit and use collective information over time.”
This anecdotal observation is backed up by research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and Health Expectations which shows that patients may forget up to 80% of medical information shared during clinical visits, particularly when the information is complex or delivered under stress.
The app, available now on iOS and soon on Android, offers a range of features to extend the value of each medical interaction beyond the appointment itself.
For example, the platform automatically generates detailed summaries of health visits, allowing patients to revisit information in a clear, structured way.
Marcus stores summaries, but not recordings, of visits, and includes a persistent memory, which enables users to ask questions based on prior appointments.
There is also a family-sharing feature to support coordination across caregivers.
Meanwhile, a “Health Spotlight” allows users to track key health metrics, integrating external health records to build a unified view of a patient over time.
“Most tools in healthcare are designed to support clinicians and workflows within the clinic,” says Banerjee. “But managing care doesn’t stop when an appointment ends.”
“We saw the need for something that supports patients and families between visits, helping them make sense of information and use it as they move forward,” the entrepreneur said.
Leave a Reply