The greatest achievement of humankind is the groundbreaking advancement of medicine. Technology has massively contributed to the industry’s refinement, mainly by implementing proficient and high-tech scientific innovations.

One of the most remarkable innovations in healthcare was brought by Piotr Orzechowski, a creative and die-hard health fanatic. With the use of revamped digital tools, Piotr developed Infermedica as a unique medical platform that serves those in need!

Infermedica leverages AI, smart diagnostics, algorithms, and machine learning tools to decrease medical misdiagnosis and increase healthcare accessibility worldwide - all provided at minimal cost and with the utmost quality. The company anticipates generating over 14 million healthcare workers globally by 2030, thus ensuring the ultimate health of every patient is in the best of hands!

Being a pundit in the world of medicine is not your average Joe’s ambition. Here’s how Piotr Orzechowski went out of his way to ensure that quality medicine is attainable by patients in every corner of the world!

The Polish Game-Geek

Piotr was born in the mid-80s in a humble middle-class family. He was raised in Wroclaw, by two scientist parents. Considering their quality educational background, Piotr’s parents wanted their son to have the best possible knowledge and education.

During the early 90s, the fields of technology and computer engineering in Wroclaw were still an upcoming industry and predicted to kickstart an era of change.

Because of their professional experience, Piotr’s parents had a few computers at home, which they used for work. Living in a household with science geniuses for parents triggered Piotr to develop an early love for computers, technology, and medicine.

While still just a kid, Piotr spent most of his time watching his parents work and oftentimes sat on their computers to get acquainted with the new technology. In his teenage years, Piotr turned to video games and became fascinated with not just games, but software and apps as well. One day, and out of the blue, Piotr shared with his parents that he would love to continue his education in a technological field, and even code for a living or become a leading game developer.

Gathering the Experience

When Piotr was in high school, he spent most of his time reading sci-fi and technological books. As a result, he fell in love with the idea of inventing and creating with the help of both regular technology as well as artificial intelligence. Piotr was amazed by the concept of building video games and was downright impressed by all the stunning visual effects that came with them. Piotr’s talent for playing games, coding, IT, and computers was more than obvious.

Piotr was a computer geek at heart and craved to upgrade his knowledge and enter professional waters with his acquired skills. Instead of just attending college, Piotr decided to start applying for jobs and ultimately switched between various programming companies, all of which helped him sharpen up his skills. Aside from programming, Piotr also worked at several Wroclaw companies for developing mobile games. Once his wings were spread and his craft evolved, Piotr began thinking about founding his own startup. This dream came true when one of Piotr’s friends invited him to collaborate on a joint platform for database development and industrial apps. Out of their combined effort came ‘Software House.’

By managing the platform daily, Piotr realized that understanding your clients’ needs and presenting their service in the best light was pivotal for the business’s success. However, as the platform was far from ideal and not built to last, Piotr felt that a professional education would advance his success further. So, in 2005, he enrolled at the Wroclaw University of Technology and Science, where he ultimately graduated in management and software engineering in 2010.

Inspiration Sources

Following his graduation, Piotr started working at a company called Sky Storage. There, he held the CTO position and managed the platform that operated similarly to Dropbox. It offered a file-sharing service later sold to web service providers located in Poland. Through this experience, Piotr was able to gain a deeper insight into the world of refined technology which only increased his career-building enthusiasm.

Despite his professional growth, Piotr never gave up his passion for gaming. Interestingly, one of his most frequent gaming buddies was a friend of Piotr's, a doctor who had excelled in all things healthcare, and medicine. When asked about the industry’s growth, the doctor let Piotr in on a gloomy secret - the industry was less than ideal. Then and there, Piotr decided that his game-developing dreams could wait and that his professional focus needed to redshift onto technology and medicine. One of the initial ideas Piotr got for his new ambition stemmed from a game he played, ‘The Akinator.’

As the game offered insights into sophisticated algorithms and machine learning systems, Piotr immediately liked the concept and wondered if he could implement something similar into practice.

The Road to Infermedica

In the beginning, Piotr was struggling to find a business model that would work for his idea. For the time being, he only nurtured the concept of creating a newborn platform that would leverage the latest technology and inventions to help change the face of healthcare worldwide. After many restless hours of contemplating, consulting experts, and designing, Piotr had a viable concept to launch, and in 2012, Infermedica was born!

To launch it, Piotr relied on a small seed round of $150k. Shortly after its market debut, the app was heard all over Poland. Even so, Piotr still lacked a strong business model and Infermedica mainly looked like a videogame designed for medical diagnosis. Unfortunately, the audience didn’t like the design of the app, which cost Piotr visitors and of course, profits.

To overcome the challenge, Piotr fought for a second investment and when he finally received it - courtesy of Innovation Nest - he used it to leave Poland and head to Silicon Valley to learn from the best and reform his Infermedica into a global phenomenon.

Infermedica’s Design

After getting back on his feet - financially and structurally - Piotr began redesigning the platform and decided to make it different by introducing technology and AI as part of its service - and it worked like a charm!

In essence, Infermedica creates artificial tools that help set accurate and personalized medical diagnoses, provided by the best healthcare experts. These rely on the platform to analyze possible medical issues, prevent misdiagnosis and put adequate medical service to good use. This naturally helped many hospitals, infirmaries, and medical insurance companies to maximize their efficiency thanks to the extensive use of advanced digital tools. Infermedica boasts four main services and products: Call Center Triage, Emergency Room Triage, Symptom Checker, and Infermedica API. With them, the platform’s diagnostic engine was able to help professional medical staffers to acquire patient information on time, and set diagnoses based on the artificial collection of data, thus filtering emergency cases more easily.

Infermedica’s ultimate goal is to design a platform that reduces medical costs, yet offers quality symptom checkers that use machine learning to prevent disease progression.

Infermedica Today

Presently, Infermedica has over 120 employees and keeps its main offices in Poland and the USA. Piotr’s platform also attracted the attention of ten investors over the years. The company enjoyed a total funding amount of $15 million, raised over 9 rounds. Its most recent investors include Heal Capital and Inovo Venture Partners.

The company also collaborates with around fifty other companies, and its tools are used by over 5 million customers globally. The company's products and services are available in seventeen languages.

Infermedica has been depicted as the future of healthcare, health insurance, and medical excellence. Ultimately, it pays homage to its inventor, Piotr, whose passion for video games and technology led to the creation of what is considered the global preliminary medical diagnosis Commander-in-chief!