Babylon Covid-19 Care Assistant

When COVID-19 began spreading globally in early 2020, healthcare systems faced an immediate crisis: millions of people needed guidance and triage while hospitals were already overwhelmed.

At Babylon, we used our AI health platform to rapidly build the COVID-19 Care Assistant, a digital service that helped people understand symptoms, monitor illness, and access clinical support when necessary.

As Global Creative Director for Experience Design, I led multidisciplinary teams across product, clinical, and engineering to design and launch the service at speed, helping millions of people access reliable care and information during the largest public health emergency in modern history.

Global Creative Director, Experience Design

• AI-first product experience design

• Conversational UX and symptom-checking flows

• Clinical workflow design for telehealth consultations

• Patient engagement and notification systems

• Cross-functional leadership across product, clinical and engineering teams

Led experience design across global teams (~90 people) delivering new patient-facing services during the pandemic.

8%

of global covid cases were cared for by us

99%

of cases avoided long-term effects

2.3 Million

daily symptoms checks handled at peak usage

4.8/5

rating in the App Store & App of The Day

24 Million

patients used the service

$4.2 Billion

IPO

At the start of the pandemic, people were overwhelmed with uncertainty.

Patients needed answers to basic questions:

• Do my symptoms mean I have COVID-19?

• Should I isolate or seek medical help?

• When should I go to hospital?

Healthcare systems were already under pressure, and governments expected clinician shortages.

Without scalable solutions, millions of people would turn to emergency services for guidance that could be delivered digitally.

Babylon was uniquely positioned to respond. Our existing AI symptom checker and telehealth infrastructure provided a foundation for rapidly building a dedicated COVID-19 care experience.

The goal was to support large populations of low to medium risk patients without overwhelming clinicians.

The service needed to:

• Provide reliable medical guidance at scale

• Help patients monitor symptoms over time

• Escalate cases to clinicians when necessary

Rather than creating a static information hub, we designed the system as a dynamic care assistant capable of guiding patients throughout the course of the illness.

The COVID-19 Care Assistant combined several core capabilities.

Symptom checking

Patients could describe symptoms through the Babylon AI assistant, which assessed potential COVID-19 indicators and recommended next steps.

Personalised care plans

Patients received daily notifications prompting them to monitor symptoms and vital signs during isolation periods.

Guidance adapted over time based on patient responses.

Access to clinicians

When symptoms required escalation, patients could schedule video consultations with doctors directly through the platform.

Trusted information

Content was continuously updated using guidance from organisations such as the WHO and NHS to ensure patients received accurate, up-to-date advice.

Misinformation was widespread during the early stages of the pandemic.

The product needed to communicate medical guidance clearly and credibly while avoiding confusion or panic.

Design decisions focused on:

• Clear symptom guidance and next steps

• Compassionate conversational tone

• Simple explanations of medical recommendations

This helped patients understand their situation and take appropriate action.

The platform had to handle extraordinary demand.

At peak usage the system processed over 2.3 million symptom checks per day, supporting patients across multiple countries.

Proactive notifications and monitoring helped patients track symptoms over time while reducing unnecessary pressure on healthcare systems.

By triaging cases digitally and escalating only when necessary, the service helped clinicians focus on patients most in need of care.

Designing healthcare products during a global crisis revealed several lessons.

• Scale changes everything.
  Systems designed for millions of people must prioritise clarity, reliability, and resilience.

• Trust determines adoption.
  People will only act on medical advice if they believe the information is credible.

• AI works best when paired with human care.
  Automation can handle large volumes of interactions, but clinician access remains essential for complex cases.

These principles continue to shape how I approach AI-driven healthcare products.

Team

Emily Sappington, Lucy Soares-Turner, Michael Owen, Adrián López Hernández, Joao Araujo, Ana Marta, Ozlem Kucukyilmaz Williams, Anna Zawilska, Claire Woodcock, Steven Chang

COMPANY / Launch

Babylon Health / 2020