Patient uses sword health.
Courtesy of Sword Health
Pain management startup Sword Health on Tuesday announced a new artificial intelligence solution called Phoenix that will enable patients to receive guidance over the phone during virtual physical therapy sessions.
Founded in 2015, Sword offers digital tools that help patients manage their pain from home and avoid other treatments like opioids and surgery. The company has used AI in its products since its launch, but CEO Virgílio Bento told CNBC that Phoenix offers users a more human experience.
Phoenix is designed to mimic the work of a care specialist. Bento said patients should feel like they have a physical therapist in their home. Patients can talk directly to Phoenix about how they are feeling, and the new “specialist” can respond in real time, provide feedback and adjust the difficulty level and length of the session.
Sword patients participate in sessions using a company tablet that can track their movements. Bento said Phoenix monitors their progress and, after each session, summarizes their performance data and sends it to one of Sword's human clinicians for review.
Bento said that Sword's AI is currently able to analyze movement and provide simple feedback, but Phoenix is more conversational. Phoenix's ability to analyze patient data and generate recommendations also helps the company's doctors work more efficiently, Bento added.
Phoenix suggests changes to the patient for the next session and sends a follow-up message about the completed session. Bento said a human doctor decides whether to accept, reject or edit those recommendations. Sword's doctors have the authority over which exercises are appropriate for a patient, so Phoenix doesn't make decisions independently.
“This is health care, so you always need final approval,” Bento said in an interview. “We have strong guardrails in place about the way we do things.”
Patients can sign up for Sword if it is supported by their employer or health insurance company. Sword has already conducted more than 3 million AI-powered sessions with patients, according to a press release Tuesday. Bento said the company has focused on business customers but is keen to make its solutions available to everyone.
Sword also announced Tuesday that it raised $100 million in a secondary sale to provide liquidity for current and former employees and early investors. Bento said the company expects to be profitable this year but raised another $30 million in a primary sale to update its valuation.
The company has raised a total of $340 million and is valued at $3 billion, the statement said. At the end of 2021, the value was $2 billion.
Sword said a mix of new and existing investors participated in the round, some of whom asked not to be identified. Venture capital firms including Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund and General Catalyst have previously invested in the company.
Sword has tested Phoenix with some patients using its digital physical therapy product, Thrive. Bento said the company will roll it out to more patients in the coming months within Thrive and in its other offerings, including its pelvic health solution called Bloom.
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