Ditto, the app that summarizes everything doctors say, wins the regional preliminary round in South Holland, making it the first finalist for the National Care Innovation Award. Tobias Polak, one of the three founders, explains how rethinking made Ditto exist today.
Ditto solves a problem many people experience after leaving the consulting room: what did the doctor actually say and what should I do next?
"About 60 percent of what people hear in the consulting room they forget. Especially if it's complicated or invasive. When someone is told they have cancer, the picture goes black," said Tobias Polak, who launched the app with Merlijn van Breugel and Bart Voorn in 2025.
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Conversation with doctor in understandable language
Merlin's 86-year-old grandmother is in a lung cancer trial and often forgets what is said, so she takes someone into the consultation room with her every time. Bart is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 30 and walks out of the consultation room with a piece of paper he doesn't understand much about. Tobias goes with a friend who is told he has cancer and afterwards it turns out they both attended a different consultation.
In short: lack of clarity, confusion and a flood of information - these problems led to the creation of this app. With Ditto, patients record the conversation in the consultation room via their own phones, then the app translates it via an AI application into a summary in understandable language, in just minutes.
Ditto versus ChatGPT
You might say: why not just record the conversation with your phone via dictaphone and then have ChatGPT summarize it? Polak is very clear about that. "Security. Nobody wants medical data to leak to ChatGPT. Our app processes the data and then deletes it, but we don't store anything centrally. All data stays local on your phone. You can do whatever you want with it. The control is yours. For example, you can share the summary at the touch of a button to keep your family informed."
In addition, Polak emphasizes the risk of hallucinations. "ChatGPT will always make a summary of everything and we don't do that. If the app cannot provide a clear and correct summary with enough certainty, it is not done. The patient is then advised to listen back to the recording themselves. We prefer to sail on caution rather than speed and convenience."
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Thinking and innovating from the patient's perspective
Many healthcare innovations aim to take the burden off the healthcare professional, such as Juvoly, which summarizes a consultation with the family doctor via voice recognition and AI and automatically puts it into the record. Juvoly won the National Care Innovation Award 2024 and inspired the guys from Ditto. Now Ditto and Juvoly are working closely together.
"Many innovations mean that doctors no longer have to type reports, but meanwhile the patient still sits across from them with pen and paper. We wanted to create something in the interest of the patient."
Tips for healthcare entrepreneurs
Healthcare is a conservative sector, according to Polak. "Nobody dares to be the first to stick their head above the parapet. You quickly get bogged down in eternal deliberations. Be aware of that as a healthcare entrepreneur. You often turn a blue before you succeed."
So what's the first step for healthcare entrepreneurs? "Just get started. Your first idea is never the final idea anyway. It changes all the time. The biggest pitfall is waiting for a good idea. A waste of your time."
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Ditto in the future
The app only went live in July this year and already has more than 30,000 active users. About scaling up beyond the borders of the Netherlands, Polak cannot (and should not) say much yet. "Nice things are going to happen. Patients are of course in every country. Our ambition is to be the largest in Europe in a few years."
About the National Care Innovation Award
In 2026 Careinnovation.com for the eleventh time the National Care Innovation Award for the most innovative care innovation in the scale-up phase. Participants have a chance to win the professional jury prize worth €10,000 and the public prize worth €5,000. They will also receive guidance in the further (further) development of their innovation.
Ditto is representing South Holland in the final of the National Healthcare Innovation Award 2026 during the Health Valley event on March 12, 2026 in Nijmegen. The presentation of the national professional jury award and audience award is during Zorg & ict on April 15 at Jaarbeurs Utrecht.
