In a recent episode of FriskaAi Physicians Voices, we had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Antunes, a family medicine physician in Louisiana. Her experience working with senior care and vulnerable patient populations provides a powerful, real-world look at the primary challenges in chronic care today. It also gives us a clear vision for how AI can help solve them.
The Core Challenge: “Limited Health Literacy”
When asked about the biggest challenge her patients face, Dr. Antunes’s answer was immediate: “limited health literacy.” This is especially true, she notes, for vulnerable populations like the elderly and low-income families.
The problem is that a “magic pill,” as she calls it, doesn’t exist. Real health improvement for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension comes from outside the clinic. It requires changes to diet, activity, and lifestyle.
“First I try to educate them that their lifestyle… their habits play a great role,” Dr. Antunes explains. “That takes time, that takes a lot of conversation, trying to know them better, trying to understand their day-to-day lives.”
But this process is difficult and time-consuming. It’s a “one size fits all” approach that rarely works because every patient is different.
The Physician’s Dilemma: Too Many Apps, Not Enough Data
The second major challenge is a modern one: data overload. Patients are already using technology, but it’s completely disconnected from their clinical care.
Dr. Antunes describes this frustration perfectly: “I have a lot of patients that have different apps for different things,” she says. “For example, a blood pressure tracker… and then they have Dexcom for their diabetes.”
All this valuable data lives in separate, “siloed” apps. It’s not connected to the EHR, and it provides no timely alerts for the physician. This fragmentation is a massive missed opportunity for proactive care.
The Solution: An AI “Great Friend” to Connect the Dots
Dr. Antunes doesn’t see AI as a replacement for the doctor’s job, but as “an aid… our great friend.”
When asked for her ideal AI solution, her vision was clear and practical. She described a system that would:
- Unify Patient Data: “It would be great to have all that connected… in the same app.”
- Integrate with the EHR: The app must be “connected to the EHR.”
- Provide Timely Alerts: The system should “give notifications to both the provider and the patient” and “create reports” when it notices changes.
This vision, she explains, would “motivate patients to be more engaged” and, crucially, “help physicians act timely.”
How FriskaAi Fills the Gap
Dr. Antunes’s “wishlist” is the exact problem the FriskaAi platform was built to solve. Our technology is designed to be the “great friend” she described.
The FriskaAi app acts as the central hub she envisioned. It connects with wearables, blood pressure cuffs, and CGM devices like Dexcom. It then feeds this data to the physician’s dashboard, providing the full health picture in one place.
Our system creates the reports and notifications she described. This allows practices to “act timely” and intervene before a small issue becomes a costly emergency. It closes the loop between the clinic and the patient’s daily life, finally solving the problems of limited health literacy and siloed data.
To learn more about how the FriskaAi platform can help your practice, contact our sales team.
