By Marta Rybczynski
Brazilian startup Carecode emerged from stealth on Monday, introducing its fully AI-powered call centre designed to automatically perform administrative tasks that occur before and after patient appointments. The firm’s goal is to support healthcare companies by improving and accelerating operational results at a fraction of current costs.
According to the company, Conversational AI will redefine the way healthcare companies connect with their patients and customers.
Carecode said its Conversational AI software can overcome the limitations of traditional automated help services like chatbots, which run on fixed rules and pre-programmed responses, leaving little room for the nuances of real-life situations. The platform uses models that can adjust to complex situations and make creative decisions independently, without the need for human intervention.
“We are empowering customer support to foster trust by delivering immediate, personalised, and consistent service, turning every interaction into a relationship-building opportunity,” Carecode co-founder Thomaz Srougi told FirstWord, adding that through “instant, accurate, and thoughtful responses,” Carecode’s service allows brands to “show they care and build relationships with their users, one conversation at a time.”
The company plans to work with clients in hospitals, health plans, occupational medicine, laboratories, home care, self-management, and other institutions that have clinical staff and see patients for various types of medical procedures.
Its technology integrates information from databases such as electronic medical records (EMRs), Oracle’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, and Salesforce’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to equip its team of AI agents for informed decision-making. Carecode is leveraging machine learning, natural language processing, and large language models to create and test AI agents capable of using conversational language to communicate with patients and performing human-like tasks.
In a company blog post, Srougi wrote that his decade of experience in healthcare led him to believe that non-clinical tasks like scheduling, answering questions, and post-appointment follow-ups are just as essential as medical appointments and tests, with these processes directly impacting both clinical and business outcomes. According to Srougi, research shows that 60 per cent of patients who try to contact customer support do not get a response and 80 per cent of call centre professionals report feeling stress fatigue due to the pressure to achieve required performance metrics.
Carecode also revealed that investors including a16z Bio + Health, QED Investors, KDX Management, Endeavor Catalyst, K50 Ventures and Latitud have backed its pre-seed funding round, raising US$4.3 million. The money will be used to bolster the startup’s engineering team.
