Doctronic, an AI-powered primary care company, announced Wednesday that it is expanding into pediatric care through the acquisition of virtual pediatric company Summer Health.
New York City-based Doctronic provides free health insights. Patients can describe their symptoms or ask any health questions and the AI platform will provide a treatment plan based on peer-reviewed research. Patients can also connect with doctors for a video visit at $39 per visit. The platform is available in all 50 states and has supported more than 30 million health encounters in two years.
Summer Health, meanwhile, was founded in 2022 and offers on-demand, text-based pediatric care, and has supported more than 100,000 pediatric encounters, according to the announcement. It helps answer questions on fevers, feeding, medication, sleep, development and more.
The company’s conversational model and pediatric expertise are highly complementary to Doctronic’s platform, the announcement stated.
The acquisition will “build a single, comprehensive AI-native health platform for the entire family. … Summer Health’s text-based pediatric care and expertise will integrate directly into Doctronic’s platform, providing continuous care from birth through adulthood,” said Dr. Adam Oskowitz, co-founder and co-CEO of Doctronic, in an email.
The deal will also strengthen Doctronic’s AI capabilities with Summer Health’s repository of 100,000 pediatric text messages. This dataset includes information on how parents describe symptoms, ask questions and search for care, which will help Doctronic build more accurate pediatric AI models, according to the announcement.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Summer Health’s founder and CEO, Ellen DaSilva, will join Doctronic as the senior vice president of partnerships. She will lead the expansion of Doctronic’s B2B offering.
“As parents, we’re constantly making decisions with incomplete information. When we started Summer Health, our goal was to give parents fast, reliable answers in the moments that matter most,” DaSilva said in a statement. “The first years of a child’s life generate thousands of questions. We’ve spent years learning how parents ask them, what worries them, and what guidance actually helps. Bringing that experience into Doctronic allows us to improve care for millions more families.”
By acquiring Summer Health, Doctronic hopes to “make high-quality pediatric primary care immediately accessible outside traditional office hours, deliver seamless care for all family members through one platform, and leverage proprietary text data to develop leading pediatric AI capabilities,” Oskowitz said.
Other virtual pediatric companies include Imagine Pediatrics, Blueberry Pediatrics and PM Pediatric Care.
Photo: AndreyPopov, Getty Images
