Root Health is the culmination of years of experience from Raj Sharma – a digital health innovator from Carnegie Mellon University and Eric Ghildyal – a computer scientist from the University of Pittsburgh. 

Raj and Eric met at UPMC Enterprises, the health system’s venture capital arm, where they discovered firsthand the power of conversational AI to both form relationships with patients and drive healthcare operations for medication adherence. After seeing their adherence solution rapidly adopted by hospitals in the network, they left UPMC and noticed the gap between clinical care and clinical research. 

They interviewed hundreds of world-class research teams across the United States to discuss the challenges in clinical studies. The conversation always came back to study recruitment and retention because, without participation, there is no research.

They discovered the solution to increasing participation and retention was shockingly simple: more personalized one-on-one conversations. One world-class investigator they now work with said it best, “Clinical studies start with conversations.” And that’s how Root was born – an AI virtual assistant who has interactive human-like conversations with participants and supports meaningful Study Team to Participant interaction, in person or virtually.  The Root Assistant helps participants every step in their journey while automating workflows and reporting for study teams, so they can focus on what’s most important – the human connection.