Meet Ada: an App that can diagnose health issues via smartphone

The name sounds really awesome for Nigerians from Southeastern part of the country. Ada is the name of a woman, usually the first female born in a family. But here, Ada is an app.

Meet the Ada Personal Health Companion, an AI-powered app that listens to your symptoms and then tries to diagnose your possible health problem. And no, it’s not replacing doctors anytime soon, but the app is a step in the right direction; letting people ease that nagging worry without feeling embarrassed about going to the doctor for what may be “nothing at all”.

We tried it out, and the app is certainly simple, if a little bare-bones. All you have to do is download it for Android or iOS and then sign up with your email. The app only requires you put in your name and birthday, and claims to be “100 percent private”. If you’re still worried about your privacy, you can give in a fake name like we did, and there’s no problem.

While the app asks you for your birth date on setup, you’ll need to manually input your height and weight from the settings menu. However, we’re still not sure if this plays a part in the diagnosis, as we didn’t see any change in the report received.

When you start a diagnosis, Ada asks you for a symptom you are(or someone else is) experiencing, and then quizzes you on it. The app has a library of very specific symptoms for you to draw on, complete with an auto suggest feature to help you out. Specify how long you’ve had the symptoms, any other problems, and answer questions like whether activity makes it better or worse, and you’re done.

Ada generates a report with possible diagnoses based on your description, and accordingly recommends you to see a doctor, as well as providing possible home remedies for milder cases. It also offers you the option to track your symptoms over time, if you choose.

The Ada Personal Health Companion is available to download for free from both the iTunes App Store and Google Play.