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We've all had the horrifying moment of looking up a health symptom and receiving a horrifying - but probably fake - diagnosis in return.That's the scenario the Buoy app is trying to avoid.
The iPhone app was founded by a team of doctors from Harvard Medical School and uses artificial intelligence to simulate a conversation with a doctor. By asking a series of questions and ruling out possibilities as it goes, Buoy says it provides a more accurate diagnosis than just typing a series of symptoms into Google. Most importantly, Buoy will never tell you you have cancer.
CEO Andrew Le has been working on the app since 2014 and it launched in March. He told Boston Magazine that in a test of 500 patients in the waiting room of a hospital, the app provided the same diagnosis as a real doctor 90% of the time.
The app is free and works much like a text message chat between two people. Here's how to use it.