Scaling Trust: What Mediktor's AI Triage Tool Actually Does

Cristian Pascual (0:04)

So when it comes to health care delivery, and we are talking about health care companies providing health care delivery, you need the professional tool. You cannot use a general purpose tool, and these tools need to be integrated in the flow of health care. So this is a very niche way of approaching this, not a general way. And for that, of course, you can blend LLM technology, but you need to put in place all the safeguards for health care. So I think that all big companies have realized this. I'm talking about big companies in health care, and they look for professional tools that maybe they can embed LLM or not, whatever.

I mean, I don't think that LLM is a need. I think LLM is an option that comes also with cost, and cost efficiency in some places of the world. It's extremely important also.

And of course, needs to be in this health care delivery constantly integrated. So I really believe that yes, it's a huge disruption. It's something that is there and has changed the mindset. But when it comes to health care delivery, you need a professional tool.

Logan Plaster (1:25)

Cristian Pascual, CEO and co-founder of Mediktor. Thank you for joining me here at StartUp Health.

Cristian Pascual (1:31)

No, thank you for allowing me to share where we are.

Logan Plaster (1:35)

Yeah. So you and I have had the benefit of getting to talk about the Mediktor story over many years. And I remember the first time I heard about this idea of virtual triage, this idea of helping people know where to go for care.

A lot of people, they get hurt or they get sick and they immediately just sort of start casting about for the nearest emergency department or they just don't know what to do.

And you created this initial tool that has evolved over many years, but really helps people. I remember you telling me find the right level of care at the right time, the right place, and it's something that was needed a decade ago and it's still needed now. The technology has really changed. And so I wanted to call you up and talk to you about how Mediktor has evolved, kind of where triage tools sit today in 2026, the role of AI in that process. So why don't you just start by giving me a kind of an overview of what the Mediktor product looks like now in 2026?

Cristian Pascual (2:37)

Of course, we have evolved a lot, but I think that the core technology sits in the same place. We just add refinement and more refinement to try to be more easy to use and more safe and also more accurate. So that has been the evolution. But at the end, as you said, we are solving a global problem, which is the first step in health care. When people start to feel symptoms and decide where to go, typically nobody will train you on what services are available. Nobody will tell you how to decide where to go, and people just guess, or Google or TadgVD.

So I think that step, that very first step is extremely important to not only for safety, but also convenience and efficiency. So what we do is we solve this problem, we assess symptoms, we guide people to the most appropriate next step, and that drives a lot of value and also convenience to the user.

Logan Plaster (3:41)

How has your technology shifted? I'm guessing that originally it was more of a rules-based system than maybe it is now as we've gotten into this world of LLMs and layering on conversational intelligence. So tell us about how that evolution has changed the product.

Cristian Pascual (3:57)

So we have never been rule-based. We have always let AI decide where to launch. I mean, our game is what is the next best question to ask you.

Our mindset is how we use technology to make this question as a physician would.

That's the objective. Since the beginning, we did one thing, that is to allow natural language processing. We allowed users to express how they wanted.

From there, I think that we refine a lot the technology through the years, and maybe the last evolution has been to add an LLM layer to all these technologies. So we combine both worlds. We allow natural conversation at the same time that we provide the same clinical safety that we had with the non-LLM technology. But I have to say that it's a client choice to use LLM or not, that has, of course, some convenience on one side, which is, as you were talking to somebody, but also people like buttons. And for easy to use, to get these buttons away and need to write, some people don't find it so much, let's say, easy. So, well, there's ups and downs on the LLM, and if the client uses it or not, it's a choice.