Galen AI: Your Personal Health Assistant Powered by Data and AI

In today’s fragmented healthcare landscape, patients are expected to be their own care coordinators. From tracking medical records across hospitals, to understanding overlapping conditions and managing multiple prescriptions, the burden often falls squarely on the shoulders of individuals—especially those with chronic conditions. Co-founder Viraj Mehta knows this firsthand. His long battle with chronic low back pain left him waiting weeks for follow-ups, receiving little education about diagnoses, and piecing together complex care routines from scattered sources.

This isn't just Viraj's story. Every day, nearly one billion health-related searches are made on Google—often by people desperate for answers. Yet these results are generic, impersonal, and devoid of any user-specific context. The underlying issue? Health data is siloed, access is delayed, and AI tools like ChatGPT, though powerful, lack the context of a user’s clinical background. This is where Galen AI steps in.

How Does Galen AI Work?

Galen AI is a personal healthcare agent powered by the user’s own medical and wearable data. It seamlessly integrates with over 800 healthcare institutions across more than 12,000 locations in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. Whether your records are at your local clinic or a specialized facility, Galen consolidates them all into one secure, unified system.

But Galen goes a step further by syncing with over 20 leading wearable devices, such as Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Dexcom. Through this, it creates a real-time, evolving health profile. Your step count, heart rate variability, blood glucose levels, sleep metrics—all become part of a continuous data stream that Galen uses to generate hyper-personalized health insights.

This integration allows users to do what was previously difficult or impossible:

• Ask questions about past diagnoses in natural language
• Understand new symptoms in the context of pre-existing conditions
• Receive proactive alerts about medication interactions or comorbidities
• Spot long-term patterns that even doctors might miss

In short, Galen turns your health data into a living, learning dialogue.

Why Is Galen Different from Other Health Apps?

Unlike symptom checkers or AI tools that require manual input, Galen is context-aware and continuously updates. It doesn’t rely on a static set of user-provided symptoms; instead, it builds a dynamic memory of your health, using state-of-the-art large language model (LLM) technology.

While traditional healthcare portals are often clunky and read-only, Galen is conversational and actionable. Users can “talk” to their data—ask Galen to summarize their medical history, get explanations about recent lab results, or explore how a new diagnosis might interact with their current treatment plan.

Most importantly, Galen is not just reactive; it’s proactive. The app can monitor for signs of emerging health issues and suggest follow-ups before the next appointment is even scheduled. It empowers users to move from passive patient to active health partner.

What Inspired the Founders to Build Galen?

Galen’s genesis is deeply personal. Co-founder Viraj Mehta’s prolonged struggles navigating a healthcare system unfit for chronic condition management led him to rely increasingly on ChatGPT. But as powerful as general-purpose LLMs are, they’re blind to patient-specific data—medical histories, prescriptions, and wearable data—all of which are vital for safe, informed health advice.

Alongside Priyanka Shrestha, a fellow Stanford graduate with deep experience in clinical and biocomputation research, the duo began building what they wished they’d had: a reliable, always-on, hyper-personalized health companion.

Their partnership began in a Stanford classroom, but quickly evolved into several AI-healthcare collaborations, including a mobile app for cancer patients developed with the Stanford Center of Biodesign. Their mission? To ensure that no patient feels alone or underinformed on their health journey again.

What Does Galen Offer to Users?

Galen is more than just a chatbot. It is a fully integrated, AI-powered health platform with three major capabilities:

1. Unified Health Record Aggregation
   Patients can sync their records from 800+ healthcare institutions. No more toggling between patient portals or printing out lab results for your next doctor visit. Everything is in one place.
2. Wearable Device Integration
   Galen syncs with devices like Apple Watch, Dexcom, and Fitbit to incorporate real-time physiological data, making it possible to detect subtle trends and provide contextual advice.
3. Conversational AI Interface
   Through natural language interactions, users can query their medical history, explore treatment impacts, get explanations for test results, and ask follow-up questions—all tailored to their unique health profile.

And soon, the beta app will be available for download on the App Store, making this experience accessible to users everywhere.

Is Galen Safe and Private?

In the realm of personal health data, trust is paramount. Galen is built with a security-first mindset. Medical record integration is done through secure APIs like Apple HealthKit, and data privacy is treated with the same rigor as major healthcare systems.

Additionally, Galen’s conversational model never shares user data externally. Insights are derived from locally stored or securely cloud-based encrypted data stores, ensuring compliance with HIPAA, GDPR, and other regional healthcare data regulations.

Who Are the Minds Behind Galen?

Galen is the brainchild of Priyanka Shrestha and Viraj Mehta—two Stanford-educated computer scientists with a passion for fixing healthcare. Priyanka, originally on a pre-med track, conducted clinical and AI research at UCLA, Stanford SAIL, and the Gladstone Institutes. She also worked as a software engineer at Roche, gaining a ground-level view of medical tech.

Viraj, by contrast, brings a quantitative edge from his background in machine learning at Optiver and trading at IMC. Their complementary skills in AI, healthcare, and user experience have merged into a singular vision for personalized, proactive healthcare.

What’s Next for Galen AI?

Currently in beta, Galen is gathering feedback from early users while finalizing its public release on the App Store. The roadmap includes deeper integrations with more wearables, support for additional countries, and the eventual launch of enterprise solutions for health systems and employers.

Long-term, Galen aims to be the go-to healthcare companion for millions, not a replacement for doctors, but a bridge that makes every patient-doctor interaction more informed and actionable.

Why Does Galen Matter?

In an age where healthcare systems are stretched thin and patients are increasingly turning to AI for medical information, Galen fills a critical void. It brings context to AI. It brings control to patients. And it brings clarity to the overwhelming task of managing personal health.

As medical systems become more digitized and data-rich, Galen is poised to be the connective tissue that turns that data into daily support, smarter decisions, and healthier lives.

Galen AI isn’t just an app—it’s the future of empowered, data-driven healthcare.