AiFred Health

AI Clinical decision support in mental healthcare.

Founded by a multidisciplinary team of university graduates, Aifred Health is a digital health startup building clinical decision support tools through machine learning to better manage and personalize the treatment of depression. 

There are myriad options for treatment when dealing with mental health issues. Aifred Health streamlines the process through their app. “Almost all treatments are effective, but there is individual variation in response to treatment, hence the need for AI to do personalized matching of patients to individual treatments,” says Marina Massingham, CEO of Aifred. 

The Solution

“Depression and anxiety alone is more than a trillion dollar burden worldwide, so it’s a global need.” says Marina Massingham, CEO of Aifred. 

Patients answer short questionnaires about their mental health on a weekly basis. Aifred’s artificial intelligence will determine the optimal treatment for them, including the probability for remission. The app is completing successful pilots with doctors and patients from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, the McGill University Health Centre, the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, and the Centre intégré de santé et des services sociaux de l’Outaouais in Gatineau. It has also attracted partners at a number of U.K. and U.S. universities.

The Journey

Aifred Health’s deep-learning tool is the only Canadian semi-finalist out of ten in the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, a four-year global competition with over $4M in prizes to solve the world’s grand challenges using AI. Before that, Aifred was ranked as the top competitor out of 34 teams. It won the 2018 milestone competition, which came with a $35,000 prize. The company raised a $490,000 pre-seed round from Anges Québec and other angels in Ontario and the UK, as well as from MEDTEQ.