Submitted
2020 Health Security & Pandemics

AALIA.tech

Team Leader
Samah Ghalloussi
Solution Overview
Solution Name:
AALIA.tech
One-line solution summary:
AALIA.tech is an AI-based voice assistant aiming to facilitate communication between a caregiver and patients who speak different languages
Pitch your solution.

44million people in theU.S. are foreign born : 13,5%of the U.S.population

100% of caregivers will be confronted to patients who don't speak their language.

AALIA.tech is an easy-to-use smartphone application dedicated to health professionals, that can be used by typing or vocal instructions. Our innovation is about digitizing medical interpretation, bringing together in a single device, all the medical knowledge in several languages and dialects. We are using Artificial Intelligence to overcome communication issues between patients and caregivers speaking different languages. 

AALIA.tech adapts to the patient’s linguistic culture and hence offers a personalized solution. For instance, it can differentiate the Arabic spoken in Egypt from the one spoken in Lebanon, and therefore provide a high quality translation consistent with the patient’s background.

By using our product, healthcare professionals can better take care of their foreigner patients, save time, increase their efficiency and most importantly, avoid misunderstandings leading to medical errors.

Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?

8,2 million people in France are foreign born : 12,3 % of the french population.

Some 13.5 percent of the U.S. population (44 million) is foreign born and many are not proficient in English, choosing to speak Spanish at home instead. A report from the Migration Policy Institute found that 22 percent of the U.S. population does not speak English at home.

Communication issues impact severely on the quality of healthcare. The misleading information provided by the patient or the praticien can lead to dramatic diagnosis and consequences. According to a Canadian study (Source: Lee & al, 5, 86-89, Academic Emergency Medicine), a patient who does not speak the language of the caregiver is 70% more likely to be wrongly or unnecessarily admitted to the hospital. The existing solutions to overcome this issue rely on the caregiver’s language skills or the use of an interpreter. However, none of these options is always available. Moreover, appealing to a medical interpreter is expensive, so this solution relies on the hospital’s financial budget.  In contrast, our service offers a rapid, personalized and low-cost solution to overcome the communication issues during medical visits.

What is your solution?

We propose an AI-based voice assistant medical interpreter that translates medical questions into the patient’s native language, taking into account the medical context and the patient's culture. 

The app can assist doctors during medical visits with patients who speak a different language.  

We offer a service that is constantly updated, improving with the collected data thereby improving the recognition to be able to recognize new expressions. The more the service is used, the smarter it becomes and the more adjusted it is to the patient linguistic culture. The learning process is based on 48 sentences gained from medical interviews and offered in several languages. Feedbacks from healthcare professionals, which cooperate with us, increased our database and today we can offer more than 600 translated sentences in 60 languages and dialects being enriched.

Our solution uses SpeechToText, Language Understanding and TextToSpeech as well as a translation service system oriented to the medical context

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

We aim to help 2 types of populations : Healthcare professionals and foreign patients.

Healthcare professionals can better take care of their foreigner patients, save time, increase their efficiency and most importantly, avoid misunderstandings leading to medical errors.

We designed the solution with Healthcare professionals to ensure we respond to their needs.

Foreign patients will be directly impacted because they won’t have to worry if the caregiver will understand them during a medical visit. They are tourists from all over the world, but we target migrants and refugees to help them overcome the barrier language.

We are testing our solution with patients from the French Red Cross to ensure our solution has a positive impact on the most vulnerable too.

Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge.

Our solution aims to solve barrier language problems in the medical context. Since the beginning of the pandemic, it is really difficult for foreign patients with covid19 to see a doctor without an interpreter. This is a real problem of public health because a patient who doesn’t understand the seriousness of the situation won’t be careful enough to help limit the spreading of the disease. This is why our solution AALIA.tech is very important in times of pandemic crisis.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Paris, France
What is your solution’s stage of development?
  • Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community
Who is the primary delegate for your solution?
Samah Ghalloussi
More About Your Solution
About Your Team
Your Business Model & Funding
Partnership & Prize Funding Opportunities
Solution Team:
Samah Ghalloussi
Samah Ghalloussi
CEO