MedAscend

Lisle, IL, United States (for the staffing company acquired in 2014). The AI clinical simulation company operates with a team across the UK, Ireland, and the Middle East.  All United States companies → Founded 2013 (for the staffing company acquired in 2014). The AI clinical simulation company was founded by Ahmed Sharaf and Hana Woods during medical school.
Clinical AI Platform
Family Medicine Internal Medicine Pediatrics
Medical Education & Training
Early stage, having received grants and awards. — At least £202,500 (including a potential £150,000 from Scottish EDGE and a £52,500 grant from Innovate UK)

Products

MedAscend
MedAscend
Medical Education & Training
MedAscend offers AI conversational patient simulation for healthcare education, including OSCE circuit mode, virtual ward EPR, transcript feedback, and curriculum-mapped scenarios.

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About MedAscend

MedAscend is an AI-native medical education platform designed to revolutionize clinical training for healthcare learners, including medical, nursing, and pharmacy students, as well as those in professional policing. The platform offers AI-powered virtual patient simulations that allow students to engage in realistic clinical conversations, interpret investigations, review patient records, and complete post-consultation tasks within structured OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) circuits. This approach aims to provide scalable practice opportunities and consistent, tailored feedback, addressing limitations often found in traditional simulation methods due to faculty time, resources, and patient actor availability.

Built by clinicians for institutions, MedAscend emphasizes academic control, allowing faculty to author curriculum-mapped scenarios, define marking rubrics, and control what constitutes successful clinical practice. The platform provides speech-to-speech AI encounters that are designed to be realistic and hold up under educator scrutiny, offering transcript-grounded feedback, domain scoring, and longitudinal data to track measurable progress. MedAscend’s goal is to help institutions scale realistic simulated practice, ensuring that learners receive ample opportunities to develop clinical communication and reasoning skills in a safe environment before interacting with real patients.

MedAscend’s platform also incorporates features such as a Study Hub for organized curriculum review, a Practice Zone with daily questions and mock tests, and a Clinical Posting Companion for practical prep. The company is actively seeking developers, medical content creators, designers, doctors, educators, and investors to further its mission of streamlining medical education.

Focus Areas

AI-powered clinical simulation healthcare education medical training virtual patients communication skills clinical reasoning OSCE preparation EPR simulation

Business Intelligence

Key InvestorsInnovate UK, Scottish EDGE, Scottish Enterprise, Converge, CFE (Centre for Entrepreneurship), Royal Bank of Scotland, Elevator
PartnershipsSimuLead (Middle East & Africa), Arab American University of Palestine (AAUP), University of Gloucestershire's FutureSim centre, University of Dundee, Simulation Collective
AcquisitionsAcquired by Accountable Healthcare (Note: This refers to an older entity with the same name, in 2014)
TechnologyCloud-native, AI-powered virtual patient platform, speech-to-speech video and voice simulation, hosted LLM APIs, real-time voice & audio pipelines, prompt engineering & evaluation, LLM observability & tracing, model selection

What Physicians Need to Know

AI-Powered Clinical Simulation
MedAscend specializes in AI-powered clinical simulations featuring realistic virtual patients, relatives, and colleagues. These simulations offer speech-to-speech video and voice interactions with market-leading low-latency responses (under 500ms), allowing for natural turn-taking or push-to-talk modes on any device. The platform includes a pre-built persona library with over 30 languages and accents, and also allows for full customization of personas by voice, accent, language, personality, facial features, pathology, and setting. Educators can create and adapt scenarios to align with their curriculum and learning outcomes, including the integration of clinical media that learners must actively ask for.
Healthcare Education & Medical Training
MedAscend provides a platform for scalable, realistic simulated practice in healthcare education. It supports various disciplines including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physician associate, and allied health programs. The platform facilitates self-directed practice, blended teaching, OSCE Circuits, and interprofessional education (IPE) encounters for large cohorts of learners. It aims to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world confidence by offering a safe space for repeated practice and structured feedback.
Communication Skills & Clinical Reasoning
The platform is designed to enhance communication skills and support clinical reasoning through realistic patient consultations. Learners can practice taking histories, making decisions, explaining their reasoning, and documenting their thoughts. The AI patients are emotionally intelligent and respond appropriately to questions, providing a true-to-life experience. Post-consultation, learners receive structured feedback, highlighting areas of strength and improvement.
OSCE Preparation & EPR Simulation
MedAscend offers an OSCE Circuit mode with reading and consultation timers, room and learner allocation, and examiner override/live monitoring. It also includes an EPR (Electronic Patient Record) simulation, allowing learners to train on realistic, browser-based EPR software.
Key Differentiators
MedAscend's key differentiators include its focus on realism at scale, academic control, and evidence-based feedback. The platform is co-designed with educators and built by clinicians, ensuring it is clinically grounded and aligned with real teaching practices. It provides institution-defined assessment and AI trained on proprietary diverse conversational datasets. The low-latency speech-to-speech interactions and the ability to integrate clinical media into scenarios further enhance realism.
Technology Stack
While specific details of their underlying technology stack are not explicitly stated, MedAscend leverages AI for conversational patient simulation, speech-to-speech video and voice interactions, and transcript-grounded marking. The platform is built to UK GDPR and EU GDPR standards, with role-based access, audit trails, and configurable data retention.
Physician Tip

For physicians and educators, MedAscend offers a powerful tool to scale high-quality clinical training without increasing faculty workload. You can author curriculum-mapped scenarios with your own marking rubrics, ensuring the simulations align precisely with your teaching objectives and assessment standards. The platform provides cohort-level analytics and exportable evidence for accreditation, moderation, and review, giving you insights into where teaching is landing. The realistic AI patients and the ability to integrate clinical media provide a rich and varied practice environment for students, improving their communication and clinical reasoning skills before they encounter real patients. Furthermore, the OSCE Circuit mode and EPR simulation offer comprehensive preparation for assessments and real-world clinical documentation.

MedAscend is designed to integrate with existing simulation equipment, allowing mannequins to speak in role, language, and character with real-time speech-to-speech functionality. While specific learning management system (LMS) integrations are not detailed, the platform's focus on institutional control and curriculum alignment suggests a design conducive to integration within existing educational frameworks.

Products by MedAscend

1 product in the directory

MedAscend
MedAscend
Medical Education & Training
MedAscend offers AI conversational patient simulation for healthcare education, including OSCE circuit mode, virtual ward EPR, transcript feedback, and curriculum-mapped scenarios.

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Press & Coverage

MedAscend Insights
Bringing Clinical Media Into AI-Simulated Patient Encounters
MedAscend's simulated patients can now share relevant clinical media during consultations, requiring learners to actively recognize and request necessary information. This update aims to enhance the realism and educational value of AI-simulated patient encounters.
2026-08
MedAscend Awards & Achievements
MedAscend Wins Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award
Co-founder Hana Woods received a u00a352,500 grant from Innovate UK to expand MedAscend's AI-powered clinical simulation platform, marking the program's 10th anniversary. This award recognizes MedAscend's innovative approach to healthcare education.
2026-08
MedAscend Insights
MedAscend Featured on BBC Tech Now
BBC Tech Now visited the University of Dundee to showcase MedAscend's founders, student users, and the technology's role in the future of clinical education. The feature provided an inside look at the AI-powered virtual patient simulations.
2026-07
MedAscend Awards & Achievements
MedAscend Completes the Scottish EDGE Hat-trick with Top Future EDGE Award
MedAscend secured the Future EDGE Award at Scottish EDGE Round 27, completing a hat-trick of wins and securing a potential u00a3150,000 funding package for growth. This funding will be invested in platform development, infrastructure, and key hires.
2026-06
MedAscend Insights
Before Institutions Trust an AI Patient, They Should Ask What Sits Behind It
This article discusses the importance of reliability, fairness, and educational impact in the next phase of AI simulation in healthcare education. It highlights MedAscend's focus on giving educators control over curriculum-mapped scenarios and feedback.
2026-05
MedAscend Awards & Achievements
MedAscend named winner at the RBS Accelerator Awards in Edinburgh
MedAscend was recognized at the RBS Accelerator Awards 2026 for its work in scaling clinical communication training across healthcare education. This award acknowledges their efforts in providing accessible and effective training solutions.
2026-04
MedAscend Pilots & Partnerships
MedAscend partners with Simulation Collective
This partnership aims to make advanced simulation technology more accessible across the UK healthcare education landscape. It combines MedAscend's student-driven innovation with Simulation Collective's local expertise to enhance clinical training.
2026-02
MedAscend Pilots & Partnerships
Bringing bilingual AI-simulated practice to medical undergraduates in Palestine.
MedAscend partnered with the Arab American University of Palestine (AAUP) to provide bilingual Arabic and English AI-simulated consultations to medical undergraduates. This landmark adoption is the first of its kind in the region, offering on-demand practice and personalized feedback.
2026-01

Frequently Asked Questions

MedAscend offers a suite of AI-powered clinical simulation products designed to enhance medical training. These include virtual patient platforms that simulate realistic patient encounters, modules for developing communication skills and clinical reasoning, and specialized tools for OSCE preparation. Our simulations are built to adapt to the learner's progress, providing personalized feedback and diverse clinical scenarios.
MedAscend prioritizes the compliance and accuracy of its simulations by collaborating with leading medical experts and institutions to develop and validate our content. Our platforms are regularly updated to reflect the latest clinical guidelines and educational standards. We also incorporate robust feedback mechanisms and continuous internal reviews to maintain high fidelity and relevance.
MedAscend offers flexible pricing models tailored to various user needs. We provide subscription-based access with different tiers for individual physicians, academic institutions, and large healthcare systems. Our pricing considers factors such as the number of users, access to specific modules, and the level of customization required, with options for enterprise-level solutions.
MedAscend provides comprehensive technical support and a wealth of educational resources to ensure seamless integration and effective utilization of our simulation tools. This includes dedicated customer support, online tutorials, user manuals, and best practice guides. We also offer training sessions and webinars to help educators and learners maximize the benefits of our platforms.
MedAscend addresses EPR simulation concerns by designing our platforms with robust data privacy and security measures, adhering to industry standards and regulations. Our simulations utilize de-identified data and operate in secure environments. We also offer flexible integration options, allowing for compatibility with various existing healthcare IT infrastructures while maintaining data integrity and confidentiality.
MedAscend actively pursues strategic partnerships with leading medical schools, professional organizations, and technology providers to continuously enhance our offerings and expand our reach. These collaborations enable us to integrate cutting-edge research, validate our simulations with diverse clinical perspectives, and leverage advanced technological capabilities to deliver superior educational experiences.
MedAscend is committed to long-term growth and innovation in AI-powered clinical simulation. Our vision includes continuous development of more sophisticated virtual patients, expansion into new medical specialties, and integration of advanced AI features like personalized adaptive learning paths. We are backed by strong investment and a clear roadmap for technological advancement and market expansion, ensuring our financial stability and ability to deliver cutting-edge solutions for years to come.

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