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Revolutionizing Patient Communication with AI

THIEME ACQUIRES STAKE IN THE HEALTHTECH SCALE-UP XUND

Patient care chart with different icons and the patient at the center.

Thieme participates in the Viennese healthtech scale-up company XUND. Together, the companies want to support medical professionals with relevant information when making a diagnosis and choosing a therapy and improve communication with patients during this process. The basis for this will be XUND's AI-based technology and Thieme's high-quality specialist information. The aim is to combine both in a Medical Large Language Model (MedLLM) and thus enable the dynamic provision of personalized medical content.

The processing of structured data and the didactic preparation of relevant medical information as well as its context-sensitive provision are at the heart of many of Thieme's activities. With its services and solutions, the healthcare provider contributes to the digitalization of information, communication and documentation processes in healthcare. 

The scale-up company XUND focuses on the individual information needs of patients and supports communication between practitioners and patients throughout the entire patient journey. The focus is on people with health problems who are looking for concrete answers to their specific questions.

AI driven Doctor-Patient Communication

The modular product portfolio developed by XUND currently comprises the medical modules "Health Check", "Illness Check" and "Symptom Check". A therapy support module is also planned for the future in the form of "Patient Monitoring". The interactions within the medical modules are structured similarly to a doctor-patient consultation: Users supplement their entries on health complaints with information on biological sex, age and known risk factors. This enables a structured recording of symptoms and the individual classification of possible illnesses. Thieme has been providing reliable information on the probable pathologies in patient-friendly language since 2020.

The Basis: Natural Language Processing

The interpretation of the entered data and the output of accurate information is based on natural language processing (NLP). With the help of artificial intelligence, millions of scientific publications and other free medical texts are analyzed and interpreted and, on this basis, information tailored to the user is provided in a structured manner.

All XUND medical modules are subject to the European Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and must therefore meet the highest quality and safety standards. The "Symptom Check" and the "Illness Check" are based on the same technology and together are certified as a Class IIa medical device in accordance with the MDR. With a certified quality management system for medical devices and "foscoMED", the software medical device certified in accordance with the EU Medical Device Regulation, Thieme also demonstrates its own very high quality standards.

Tamás Petrovics is Co-Founder & CEO of the Healthtech Scale-ups XUND

"Together, we can be even more effective and make a tangible contribution to better medical care."

Tamás Petrovics is Co-Founder & CEO of the healthtech scale-up XUND, based in Vienna and with offices in Budapest and London. Tamás is responsible for the corporate strategy. He is committed to making XUND's vision of the digital patient journey a reality. Besides, he represents the company to the outside world.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that deals with the interaction between computers and human language. NLP methods enable machines to understand and analyze human language and respond to it in a meaningful way. NLP-based tools are trained with unstructured texts, so-called free texts. AI recognizes patterns and applies them when creating new texts. Areas of application include machine translation, chatbots, summarizing texts or generating new, specific texts.

The Target Vision: Medical Large Language Models

In the next step, Thieme and XUND want to work together even more intensively than before on digital health innovations that support people in dealing with their illness and improve doctor-patient communication. The joint goal is to develop Medical Large Language Models (MedLLMs) based on XUND's technology and trained with Thieme's medical content. "The use of artificial intelligence will take the matching of individual patient data and personalized, target group-specific information to a new level," Tamás Petrovics, Co-Founder & CEO of XUND, is convinced.

Katrin Siems, Senior Executive Vice President, Global Head of Marketing & Sales at Thieme

Shaping Digital Change together

 "The young XUND team has turned innovative ideas into a user-friendly application within just a few years," says Katrin Siems, Senior Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales at Thieme. "With our investment, we will benefit even more from the dynamism and outstanding technological expertise that characterizes this scale-up."

"With Thieme, we are gaining a partner that not only offers us access to standardized information and content of unique quality, but also has proven expertise in standardization, interoperability and clinical processes," adds Tamás Petrovics.

"Only together we are able to shape the digital transformation in the healthcare sector," Katrin Siems is convinced. "With XUND, we are expanding our partner network with another powerful partner." Tamás Petrovics is also certain: "Together, we can be even more effective and make a tangible contribution to better medical care."

Medical Large Language Models (MedLLMs)

Large Language Models (LLMs) are based on the Transformer architecture and are a central element of Natural Language Processing (NLP). They enable a deep understanding and generation of human language. When adapting these models to specific domains, such as a Medical Large Language Model (MedLLM) for the healthcare sector, techniques such as Retriever Augmented Generation (RAG) are often used. RAG combines the natural language understanding of LLMs with the ability to extract specific information from large amounts of data in a targeted manner. This leads to significantly improved accuracy and relevance of the generated content in a medical context.

About XUND

XUND enables healthcare providers to digitize the patient journey and thus translate unstructured patient data into usable knowledge. Founded in Vienna in 2018, the scale-up company covers the entire patient journey with its Patient Interaction Suite and enables digital interactions from prevention to diagnosis and monitoring. The technology is used as the first digital point of contact by leading insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies and is the industry's first class IIa medical device in accordance with the EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR). The scale-up now employs more than 40 people and has, in addition to its headquarters in Vienna, offices in Budapest and in London.