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Touch Surgery: Digital Innovation Empowering Medical Sciences

Leave a Comment / Founder, Health, Microsoft, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Edtech is one of the booming industries today, and would you believe it if we tell you that you can also learn the complete procedure of a surgery simulated in an operating room on your smartphones? Believable enough, but most of us would have not thought of it yet, right? Medical studies are the most expensive of all and getting to see and learn the procedure for all types of surgeries is not even possible for those studying medical sciences. The same thought came into the minds of two medical residents at the Imperial College London, Jean Nehme, and Andre Chow, and they end up developing Touch Surgery.

Touch Surgery

Touch Surgery has played a vital role in transforming the medical world with the help of digital technology. It is a training app for medical students that simulate surgical procedures, validated by 19 independent peer-reviewed publications. The company Digital Surgery LTD is the parent company of Touch Surgery, having its headquarters in three major cities, i.e. London, New York City, Auckland, and Sydney. In the beginning, the company name was Kinosis and later was changed to Digital Surgery, to reflect the border scope and mission of the company.

Digital Surgery is a healthcare technology company that is using digital technology to help in making all the surgeries even safer. The app includes a near to reality simulator and AI-powered surgical video management platform, offering accurate surgical content for the doctors to enhance their skills and for the medical students to practice in the operating room.

The interactive simulator of Touch Surgery helps the medical trainees to learn the step-by-step surgical procedure and test their knowledge and skills related to medical operations, through the simulator. Most importantly, it helps in enhancing their skills of decision-making in a real-time environment. The app has also proved to be useful for patients who are about to go under surgery. They use this app to know more about their surgical procedure.

Digital Surgery tied up with Microsoft in 2018 to use Microsoft’s under development Microsoft Hololens (mixed reality smartglasses for surgery) to accomplish the company’s mission of safe surgery for all. The app includes around two hundred surgery training in seventeen different specialties and is used by many medical institutions to provide the ‘to-be doctors’ with a great learning experience. Currently, the app has got over 2 million users registered to it. The Dublin-based Irish company Medtronic, a Medtech conglomerate, acquired Touch Surgery for an amount of $500 million in 2020.

The Idea Behind Touch Surgery

Jean Nehme and Andre Chow the co-founders of Touch Surgery was still working as medical residents at the Imperial College London when they thought of the idea. Since the two were residents, they did not have the access to the resources that could help them enhance their skills as a surgeon. They realized that most of the medical students do not get to try their hands on all types of surgical procedures lacking additional experience. The only source to help them to enhance their skills was surgical simulators, but these too were too expensive to get.

This led the two to think of a cheaper and more accessible simulator for all, i.e. Touch Surgery. They discussed the idea of Touch Surgery in 2010 and founded the app in 2012. The idea was innovative and useful so, they easily got connected to many investors for their research and development work too. Today, Touch Surgery has partnered with numerous surgeons, combining their expertise and digital technology to empower the surgical community.

The Founders Touch Surgery

Jean Nehme has got an MBBS BSc MRCS MSc (Hons) and specializes in plastic surgery. Nehme is an awardee of multiple awards for his research work in innovation and his contribution to digitizing medical education. He has been named as one of the most influential 500 people in the UK by Debrett. On the other hand, Andre Chow is a general surgeon.

Touch Surgery Founders
Touch Surgery Founders: Andre Chow and Jean Nehme
Image Source: balderton.com

Both the co-founders graduated from the Imperial College School of Medicine in London. During the time, the two thought of developing Touch Surgery, Chow was pursuing a Ph.D. in Stem Cells and Biotechnology. Currently, Jean Nehme is working as the CEO, and Andre Chow is working as the COO of Touch Surgery.

PIVOT Smartflow

How PIVOT Smartflow is Changing the Healthcare Industry by Streamlining Sterile Processes

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The recent months have shown people the importance of medical care in all our lives. As a result, the attention on companies focusing on Medtech has also increased exponentially. Around the world, there are a lot of companies that are trying to make things easier for medical professionals. Medical automation had been gaining prominence in recent years due to massive advancements in AI and ML technology. This time around, we will be taking a look at another Medtech company that has been making quite a few ripples in the healthcare space – Pivot Smartflow.

Early Beginnings

Pivot Smartflow, a Mumbai India based company was founded in 2017, by Radhika Bawa and Aditya Bawa. Since then, the company has grown in terms of business and capabilities over the years. The pair has experience working within the healthcare space for over two decades. It was this experience that helped them understand how underprepared hospitals were in moving into the future – especially in the critical area of Sterilisation process management – a process that is at the heart of infection control in hospitals. Hence, the pair made it their life’s mission to ensure that hospitals move ahead with the times and start digitalizing &automating key tasks. Thus, the idea of Pivot Smartflow was conceived. Today Pivot Smartflow provides services to some of the top hospital chains in India.

Radhika Bawa (Managing Partner, Co-Founder), Aditya Bawa (Partner, Co-Founder)
Image Source: pivotsmartflow.com

What is Pivot Smartflow?

Surgical instruments are an integral part of patient care. Hence, monitoring and sterilizing them are vital components of the infection-free healthcare process. However, monitoring, maintaining, cleaning, and ensuring that they are available for surgeries is a time-consuming process for hospitals. But, what if there was a way to ensure that all of this happened seamlessly? Well, that is precisely what Pivot Smartflow does. The application effortlessly streamlines the workflow of surgical instruments. It also helps in eliminating the uncertainties due to misplaced tools and uncleaned instruments. As a result, the Software effectively reduces wastage of time and adds value to patient safety.

Essentially, the tool digitally integrates the Central Sterile Services Department, better known as CSSD to caregiving units. As a result, the program tracks the availability and allocation of instruments to ICUs and Operating Rooms with ease. Such a route management system enables traceability, tracking, and documentation of resource allocation. The Pivot Smartflow system works on a pay-as-you-go model. It leverages Barcodes and RFID to track the instruments, simplify monitoring, and ensure that the right sets are always available for procedures. As a result, hospitals have a much easier time managing patient care, and streamlining their surgical preparatory work.

How does Pivot Smartflow work?

Pivot Smartflow tracks the movement of surgical instruments across the hospital workflow by using RFID readers and barcode scanners. As a result, hospitals gain a birds-eye-view of the entire life cycle of their instruments. Let us now quickly take a look at the workflow process of the Pivot Smartflow system:

  1. Pivot Onboard: We help you digitize your existing inventory so that you can standardize operating procedures and terminology to prevent errors.
  2. Inventory Verification: The team does an audit of your existing inventory to highlight discrepancies and find errors in data collected.
  3. Creation of photo libraries and master lists: Next, the software creates an extensive master list of instruments with photos of each to simplify the allocation process.
  4. Unique ID solutions: Next, comes RFID tagging/laser etching of barcodes on the instruments to enable real-time tracking.
  5. Life-cycle record: By scanning any barcode or scanning an RFID tag, the staff can access the entire life and usage history of the instrument, improving accountability and improved efficiency.
  6. Workflow Digitisation: Finally, the entire workflow is digitized to ensure that human error is minimized and avoided. The system also generated documentation for regulatory compliance regarding sterilization processes followed at the hospital.
  7. Pivot Set-Store: This tool works as a visual store-room providing users with real-time access to their inventory.
  8. Surgical Whiteboard: This helps nurses to keep track of instruments used on a patient.
  9. Sterilization and Repairs Management: Both these modules enable hospitals to manage their product lifecycle perfectly.

Components of the Pivot Smartflow System

  • Web-Based and Mobile Application: The application tracks all your instruments as they make their way across the hospital in real-time.
  • Unique Instrument Identification: The system relies on RFID and Barcoding to track surgical instruments throughout their life cycle.
  • Integrated Workflow Processes: The system enables the seamless flow of information and data across multiple departments efficiently.
  • Task Automation: The software allows professionals to automate mundane tasks, locate instruments, and avoid human error.

What value does Pivot Smartflow add to hospitals?

Since the staff has real-time knowledge regarding their instruments, they can avoid guess-work and chances. The system also helps in measuring the wear and tear faced by instruments, enabling hospitals to extend tool life considerably. It introduces accountability in an otherwise manual process helping hospitals plan inventory better, makes surgeries safer, and improve the efficiency of their caregiving teams.

The software provides professionals with a lot of vital data regarding cycle count, employee productivity, breakages, and incident tracking. As a result, healthcare specialists always get updated reports regarding the instrument’s condition. The system seamlessly integrates itself into existing Hospital Information Systems. As a result, the framework becomes more efficient, accurate, and productive. The flow of data between departments and their accuracy improves exponentially due to Pivot Smartflow.

Why Choose Pivot Smartflow?

Pivot Smartflow offers several advantages to several user groups. Let us now take a quick look at why hospitals, caregivers, and patients support the use of this revolutionary software in healthcare.

  1. CSSD departments have to no longer worry about identifying or tracking their instruments.
  2. All the inventory management happens in real-time, enabling hospitals to stock accordingly. 
  3. The software goes a long way in optimizing the life-cycle of the instruments. 
  4. When used in large hospitals, the tool enables intra-department integration, visibility, and communication.
  5. It significantly reduces the chances of losing or misplacing instruments.
  6. Using the tool sharpens the turnaround time in OTs and ICUs.
  7. Due to the improved efficiency of the medical team, it helps in improving overall patient safety.
  8. It enables the primary caregivers to spend less time looking for sets & instruments and more time focusing on the patient.
  9. Using the tool also helps in preventing and avoiding human errors during instrument hand over.
  10. The hospital management will be able to gain a higher return on investment from their surgical instruments.
  11. It also enables the hospital to manage their resource allocation effectively, leading to less wastage.
  12. Such a data-driven decision-making process ensures complete accountability for all instruments.

As you can see, the future of medicine is here. Hospitals will no longer have to worry about overspending on surgical instruments and running higher incidental costs. The use of smart software, such as Pivot Smartflow will empower hospitals and healthcare professionals in a way that wasn’t possible before. With more and more hospitals looking to modify and adopt new technologies, it is safe to say that the future of this company looks promising and bright. Let us hope that in the years to come, every Indian hospital gains an opportunity to use such cutting-edge technology to provide better care to its patients.

omnivis

OmniVis : Medical Science Meets Technology to Make the World Better and Disease Free

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In the bigger picture, the present condition of our world is no less than mayhem. On the one hand, science is creating wonders with technology making our lives easier but on the other hand, millions of people are dying every day due to lack of treatment and development in medical science. Who is to blame for this? Are we way too ignorant to make significant contributions in the medical community? Or the price is so high that we have blatantly stopped trying? There are so many people dying every minute suffering from incurable diseases or due to late detection of infections in their body. Though the renowned and biggest research centres of our world are working together to invent instruments that can easily detect diseases, they are way too costly for common citizens.

With the zeal to alter the future of our world and stop it from destruction, four scholars of Purdue University, Katherine Clayton, Tamara Kinzer-Ursem, Jacqueline Linnes and Steve Wereley, came up with a unique solution to detect infectious and deadly diseases, which are both times efficient and affordable. With the mission to create affordable medical equipment, these four enlightened minds founded OmniVis, a company that will reach out to common people, help them detect disease and make out society better in terms of well-being.

Founders of OmniVis

Currently, Katherine Clayton is the CEO of the company with Ursem, Linnes and Wereley working as the Advisors.

Katherine Clayton Founder OmniVis
Image Source: halcyonhouse.org

Clayton, who is originally from San Francisco, went to Pursue University to complete her PhD in mechanical engineering. When she was an undergraduate student, she had already decided to work with healthcare products and make easy infection and disease detection equipment available to common people. When Clayton was a kid, she lost someone very close to her, due to the absence of better tools in the medical field, and hence, this was the beginning of her dream to do better for the community. She, with other three scholars, co-founded OmniVis in 2017, and since then, it has received worldwide support and funding.

Ursem is associated with Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering as an assistant professor which is under Purdue University. Her main area of research involves molecular biology, computational biology and neuroscience.

Linnes is also an assistant professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering as well. The Linnes Lab basically works to create technologies that can detect pathogens in a time-efficient way and stop them from propagating. She also has her own start-up, PotaVida founded in April 2010. The company’s goal is to develop pocket-friendly water purifiers and reach to the rural areas of the entire world.

Currently, Wereley is a professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. His specialised fields are fluid mechanics and optics. He is also the founder of a company called Microfluidics Innovations.

The Idea

Since all of them belonged to a strong research background, OmniVis emerged out as a successful idea. More than a business, it is really an idea that inspired every company, research institutes throughout the world. OmniVis has created products that can detect Cholera with less than an hour with its concepts and techniques.

Currently, OmniVis works with iPhone but soon it will incorporate the software in Android and start testing the beta version. OmniVis works in a simple process with few steps, collect the sample, detect pathogen and map location. OmniVis detects and shows the location on the map from where the sample was taken to alert the authorities. And all of these are getting done within 30 minutes with the technology of OmniVis.

The Achievements

In 2017, OmniVis acquired the first place in Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project funded by Vodafone Foundation. In 2018, OmniVis was nominated for World Changing Idea Finalist. In June 2018, the company received Phase I SBIR Grant from National Science Foundation. In the same year, OmniVis won the 2018 AMPLIFY Pitch Competition where participants from 46 different countries participated. After winning the Biological Innovation Award in February 2019, OmniVis took a step ahead and expanded out of Indiana. In May 2019, the team reached out to Bangladesh and shared the benefits of OmniVis products with them.

Some of the major investors at OmniVis are Vodafone Foundation, Deloitte, Fast Company, Purdue University, halcyon and many more.

Aurum Wellness : An App Helping People Prioritize their Mental Health

Health, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

It all started with a thought, “is mental health not as important as our physical health? Then why do we not prioritize it when we should be able to talk about it and get help? Is it fair that treatment should be sought only when extremities like clinical depression or suicidal tendencies set in? If we can provide help in the earlier stages, so much good can be done in the world”

Fresh from graduating from college, Dhwanil Shah and his co-founder Meet Patel knew that they wanted to work in the area of mental and emotional health. Dhwanil’s father has been taking stress management seminars since he was a kid, and it had always inspired him. After noticing the end number of interactions in the seminars, it dawned on him that people in all areas of life have immense stress, anxiety, or some issues that they want to tackle, but they don’t, due to constraints of time, accessibility, pricing etc., and it takes a toll on their mental health to a great degree.

The two of them, along with working in a corporate, started meeting a number of well-known psychologists and counsellors and realized that although there is a small shift happening within the community, there is still a long way to go in making people open up. He says, “There is always room to do more and more in this space. Affordability also is a major issue in seeking help. Most people do not believe that it is worth spending Rs 500-1200 for a 45-minute session, because somehow to them, their anxiety, their stress can take a backseat. We want to change this. What scares us is if we do not communicate about our emotions and mental health, we will ultimately suffer from the physical health front to a big extent. Is that ideal?”

“We conducted a lot of surveys and talked to a lot of people to figure out the pain points and decided to come up with a solution that would address them. The main concerns were accessibility, affordability and continuity. People were just not able to allocate time and money for regular sessions. They usually stop after a couple of sessions and try to resolve their issues on their own, possibly falling in the same trap again. That is how Aurum was born. We wanted Aurum to be an app which provides affordable and expert services for mental, emotional and diet wellness, a new age holistic wellness platform. We wanted to bring more to the table than just anonymous counselling. There is a section for people who still do not want to communicate with counsellors called “program” which using a very tuned algorithm, let them recognize their own problem areas, set their own improvement targets and provides simple, yet effective soothing exercises. One more very important factor in this whole holistic wellness area is that many people have issues like body image problems, Non-communicable chronic issues like diabetes, cholesterol etc which are directly related to their diet. So these diet-related issues eventually take a huge toll on the persons mental health as they are constantly in anxiety about their diet-related problems. So we also have on the platform professional diet counsellors who understand the importance of diet with respect to overall well being and they are trained to provide such quality counselling. We have on board some of the best psychologists and dieticians who are keen to be a part of a team which is so dynamic and ready to do what it takes to help in alleviating these mental and emotional health problems of the masses.”

The statistics for people suffering from holistic wellness issues like stress, anxiety, depression and diet-related issues like Obesity Diabetes, Chronic Depression, Hypertension is alarming.

Some stats which will help put things in perspective:

  • 15% of the Indian population suffers from a mental issue,
  • There are only 2000 estimated psychologists in India,
  • 45% of the working population suffers from high levels of stress.

There just aren’t enough qualified professionals in the traditional network to support these populations. Technology is the way forward, and as such we have done our best to come up with a solution, which can be both effective and appealing at the same time. They have got a very positive response, since the time it has launched. More than 2000 downloads on the play store and almost 100 paying subscribers have validated the fact that there are a lot of people who want to do this, and who find it useful. “We want to keep doing this to help those who want it but are not too willing because of the above-mentioned concerns. We aim to become a top brand in this space that people can trust and come back to whenever they feel like it”.

Hugh Herr: The Leader of the Bionic Age

Founder, Health, Inspiration, Product, Story, Tech Story / By

There have been many scientists whom inventions by mixing the technology and biology has helped the humankind to achieve the things that were unimaginable at some time. The technology has become a helping hand for those who have born with disabilities or have got one due to some mishappening. Hugh Herr is one extraordinary person, who was born like any other fit person, but misfortune hit him bad. Even though the doctors had given up on him, he overcame his disability by inventing the perfect aid for himself, which now is also helping others as well.

Early Life

Herr was born and brought up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in a Christian family. In the beginning, he was not much into studies and found his love for rock climbing at an early age. At the tender age of 8, he climbed the face of Mount Temple (11,627-foot high) and became the best climbers in the United States, when he was just 17.

The Climb

In January 1982, with a fellow climber Jeff Batzer, Hugh caught into a blizzard, while climbing the Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. Due to the snowstorm, the two lost their ways and spent three nights into the Great Gulf, at a temperature of ?29 °C. On the fourth day, the rescue team found and saved them. Spending three days at such a lower temperature caused them major injuries. Due to the frostbite, Hugh was amputated below both of his legs and Jeff got his left leg, fingers of his right hand and the toe on his right foot, amputated.

Hugh Herr
Image Source: bostonmagazine.com

Hugh went through a number of surgeries. The doctors could do everything but give him another pair of legs. Hugh could not climb the mountains anymore and had to be dependent on others. He could not accept that and, his love for mountaineering, made him create a specialized prostheses feet for himself. The prostheses feet helped him not only walk but, were also capable of ascending steep ice walls efficiently.

With time, Hugh managed to create a pair of feet that had toes with a high stiffness that could stand on a small rock of the size of a coin. He even scaled many, difficult to reach, mountains with the help of those titanium feet. Soon, he regained the title of the best climber of the US once again.

Career

Along with making improvements in his prostheses feet, Herr joined college and received a graduate degree in Physics. He then attended MIT, to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering and received a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University.

After obtaining his Doctorate degree, he started working on advanced leg prostheses and orthoses, at MIT. He headed the Biomechatronics research group at the MIT Media Lab. The group focusses on creating more functional and comfortable wearable robotic emulating devices for the disabled people.

Hugh founded BionX Medical Technologies, Inc. also known as iWalk, Inc. In 2006, that create devices that emulate and serve to supplement the human functionality. His company manufactures the computer-controlled assistive devices to aid the disabled persons.

Hugh Herr is a true achiever, and his story is an inspiration for many. He has received numerous awards for his contribution to Science and Technology, including the 13th Annual Heinz Award in 2007, and the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership Award, in 2005.

Personal Life

Hugh is married to Patricia Ellis Herr, who is an author by profession. The couple has two daughters together. At present, Herr is working as the associate professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences. In 1991, Osius, Alison wrote his biography with title Second Ascent: The Story of Hugh Herr.

Moikit: A preventive tech solution to avoid Kidney Stones

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There has been a sharp rise in Kidney stones (also known as a renal calculus or nephrolith) cases around the world in recent years. Approximately 1 in 11 people in the United States are affected by Kidney stones.

The leading cause of kidney stones is not drinking enough water. Stones commonly have been found in those who drink less than eight to ten glasses of water a day. When there is not enough water to dilute the uric acid (constituent of urine), the pH level of kidneys drops and becomes more acidic. This acidic environment in the kidneys is instrumental in the formation of kidney stones.

What if there is someone who reminds you to drink water and also keep track of your daily water intake. Moikit a Chinese tech startup has come up with a smart water bottle to track your water consumption, compile your health data and keep you hydrated.

Story behind Moikit

In 2012 Xiaoliang Li’s (founder of Moikit) wife got diagnosed with kidney stones due to poor hydration habits. When Xiaoliang studied more about Kidney stones, he learnt that less water intake leads to a host of other diseases and problems in people all over.

Drinking less water means less frequency of urination. Less urination tend minerals that cause kidney stones to settle down in the kidney nephrons and the urinary tract. When one drinks plenty of water, these minerals get flushed out through the urine instead of settling down.

In order to fix this widespread problem of hydration, Xiaoliang brought together a team to create a smart bottle that uses technology to keep people hydrated. Seed the smart water bottle from Moikit is one of the many products that Moikit is developing to solve the problem of hydration.

Seed’s built-in smart water consumption algorithms compute your body’s hydration needs according to water intake, body composition, daily activity level, and outside temperature. With this information, Seed will custom design a water intake schedule that meets your individual needs. Through small vibrations and the LED display, Seed will remind you when you have forgotten to drink enough water.

Seed using inbuilt Bluetooth transfers your water intake data to Moikit app on your smartphone. Seed also integrates seamlessly with third-party health apps and devices.