Babylon Health

Babylon began operations in North America in 2018. In August 2019, at the same time as their series C funding announcement, Babylon Health stated that the new investment would, amongst other uses, allow for international expansion into the United States.[15]

In May 2020, Babylon Health announced a partnership with Mount Sinai Health Partners, which would make the app and its healthcare services available to New Yorkers during the COVID-19 pandemic.[16] New Yorkers can consult doctors from the New York Telemedicine Association.[17]

In October 2020, it was announced that Babylon Health and Home State Health had partnered to launch its new Babylon 360 service to health plan members living in 10 counties in Southeast Missouri which would see Babylon serve as the primary care physician via its mobile application.[18] In March 2021, Babylon Health expanded its Babylon 360 services in California with an investment in First Choice Medical Group which serves nearly 50,000 Medicare Advantage and Medi-Cal members. It also supports a network of 180 primary care providers and 1,000 specialty providers.[19] In April 2021, Babylon Health acquired Meritage Medical Network, a medical group with 700 physicians based in California.[20]

In January 2022, Babylon Health acquired Higi, a consumer health engagement firm,[21] and DayToDay Health, a care management platform.[22]

In the UK, Babylon Health provides services via private subscription, pay-as-you-go and through the private medical insurer Bupa. In November 2017, Babylon launched GP at Hand, providing a free at-the-point-of-care, NHS-funded funded service.[23]

GP at Hand patients can book virtual appointments through the Babylon App. If necessary, users can request in-person appointments at one of Babylon Health's clinics.  As a functioning clinic, GP at Hand clinicians can prescribe medication, issue sick notes, and refer users to specialists.[24] As of August 2021, Babylon GP at Hand had a list size of over 100,000 patients. The patient population is significantly skewed towards younger patients, with 85% of GP at Hand patients being aged between 20 and 39 – compared with just 28% nationally.[25] In August 2022 Babylon Health announced cuts to its NHS GP at Hand service in Birmingham as it was not profitable. Babylon also ended a ten-year partnership with the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust after only 2 years as it wasn't making enough revenue.[26]

Also in the same month of August 2022, Ali Parsa addressed the entire company via Zoom, announcing widespread company cutbacks, resulting in near to half the workforce being made unexpectedly redundant from their Knightsbridge and Euston offices, including many head office staff who had been working at Babylon since its conception, and also many other staff members in the clinical operations sector, after this occurred many staff were left with subpar redundancy packages and their lives turned upside down with zero notice, this was an unexpected occurrence as it came shortly after the opening of large scale office space in Euston to accommodate the clinical staff.[27]

In September 2016, Babylon Health launched in Rwanda as Babyl, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Rwanda was the first country outside of the UK to acquire Babylon Health's services. By May 2018, Babyl was reported to have 2 million members, covering roughly 30% of Rwanda's adult population.[28]

In 2018 Babylon launched their artificially intelligent chatbot in Rwanda.[29] At the time of launch, the Babylon AI system did not include some common diseases relevant to Rwanda such as tuberculosis or Malaria.[30]

In January 2020, Babylon Health reported 1 million completed consultations in Rwanda. In March 2020, the company signed a 10-year partnership with the Rwandan government, agreeing to roll out Babyl to all Rwandans over the age of 12 through the government's community-based health insurance scheme, Mutuelle de Santé.

In September 2018, Babylon formed a partnership with the Canadian digital solutions company Telus Health to deliver Healthcare services in Canada. In 2021, Babylon stopped providing clinical healthcare services in Canada and entered into a software licensing deal with Telus.[31]

There have been concerns raised regarding the governance of Babylon Health, in particular the use of misleading promotional claims and the safety and quality of the advice offered by its artificially intelligent chatbot. Critical safety concerns relating to the chatbot were raised with UK regulatory authorities.[47][48][49]

In June 2018, the company announced that its AI could diagnose health issues as well as a human doctor, however, these claims have been widely disputed and the methods of evaluation utilized by Babylon discredited.[50] In November 2018, a Lancet publication concluded; "Babylon's study does not offer convincing evidence that its Babylon Diagnostic and Triage System can perform better than doctors in any realistic situation, and there is a possibility that it might perform significantly worse. If this study is the only evidence for the performance of the Babylon Diagnostic and Triage System, then it appears to be early in stage 2 of the STEAD framework (preclinical). Further clinical evaluation is necessary to ensure confidence in patient safety."[51]

The safety concerns relating to the chatbot highlighted significant gaps within the medical device regulatory framework for eHealth Apps. Currently, in the UK, AI Healthcare chatbots can be registered as a class 1 medical device (comparable to spectacles and walking frames), hence are not subject to any form of regulatory approval.[52]

In February 2020, safety concerns relating to the Babylon AI Chatbot were the subject of a BBC Newsnight investigation.[53] The UK's medical device regulatory body, MHRA, has acknowledged the 'concerns' regarding Babylon Health.[54]

In April 2020, Alberta's privacy commissioner launched two investigations into Babylon, by Telus Health, over non-compliance and medical privacy concerns.[55] The reports found that the province's health information privacy laws when ignored when the Telus Babylon App was launched commenting; "I think what we have here is an example of an app that was developed in another jurisdiction and was dropped into Alberta without due regard for Alberta's legislation".[56]

In May 2020, Babylon Health marketed a non-MHRA-approved COVID-19 antibody home testing kit that used capillary blood (finger-prick). Abbott which developed the antibody test to work on venous samples released a statement to advise that the test should not be conducted with finger prick samples.[57][58] The Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) asked all providers of COVID-19 antibody testing services using capillary blood collected by a finger-prick to stop providing these services and advised the public to ignore any result they get from the private kits.[59][60][61][62]

On 9 June 2020, a data breach occurred in which three patients were provided with access to recordings of other patients' video consultations.[63] Babylon Health claimed the breach was live for 2 hours and was due to a software error.[63] Following the breach, a Digital Health investigation found that a series of technical information exposing potential weaknesses in Babylon Health's technology was freely available through a Firebase database mistakenly left open.[64] Babylon Health's app security score was 10/100, putting it in the "critical risk" category, according to the CVSS scoring, a globally recognised standard for testing software and scoring its weaknesses. The full assessment report has been published on GitHub.[65]

In 2017, Babylon made a legal challenge in the High Court to prevent the Care Quality Commission (CQC) from publishing a report that raised several concerns regarding the potential for prescriptions being misused and information not always being shared with the patient's primary GP.[66] The High Court ruled against the injunction and the report was published on 8 December. Babylon has also agreed to pay the regulator £11,000 in costs.[67]