Aisel Health Raises €1.7M to Address Psychiatry's Capacity Crisis

Aisel Health, a Danish HealthTech company, has announced the closure of a €1.7 million pre-seed round, led by Caesar Ventures, to tackle the capacity crisis in psychiatry. The funding will be used to grow the company's clinical and engineering team and support its entry into the UK market.

Addressing the Capacity Crisis

The demand for psychiatric care is growing faster than health systems can absorb it, resulting in patients waiting weeks, months, or longer to see a clinician. According to Christian Houen, Aisel co-founder and Chief Product Officer, the current system is on the brink of catastrophe, with waiting lists being a major concern. Aisel aims to radically change this by providing shorter, more efficient cycles with patients, fueled by the understanding clinicians accumulate across consultations over time.

The Limitations of AI Scribes

While AI-powered medical scribes can make documentation easier, they do not necessarily translate into a better understanding of the patient. In fact, making documentation cheaper and easier can simply produce more of it, which may help with compliance but not necessarily with treatment. Aisel's platform, on the other hand, aims to give clinicians exactly what they need, when, and how they need it, by surfacing concise, organized information shortly before a consultation.

Helping Clinicians Maintain Continuity of Care

Aisel's platform has built a "sphere of understanding" around each patient, which develops over time as more information is gathered. Using psychiatric protocols, its fact-deduction system, and AI scribing to capture context, the platform surfaces the information most relevant to the clinician at a particular point in a patient's treatment. This helps maintain continuity across repeated consultations, particularly when patients move between providers.

Bringing Information from Outside the Consultation

Aisel has expanded its intake technology to gather information from outside the consultation, such as from patients' relatives, schools, and other relevant parties. This information is used to contribute to a shared understanding of the patient, reducing the need for clinicians to ask repetitive questions and improving treatment outcomes. The company is currently piloting this technology with a clinic focused on children, where it is particularly relevant due to the need for information from multiple sources.

The funding will enable Aisel to further develop its platform and expand its reach, with the goal of giving clinicians everything that matters about a patient, exactly when they need it. This, in turn, is expected to help shorten the waiting lists that have defined psychiatric care for too long.