1. Powerdot
PowerDot works via a mobile app that uses Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) to activate your muscle fibers, get your body’s lymphatic system flowing and increase the blood flow to targeted areas. Basically, it gets you moving. The result is the creation of a perfect environment for the body to recover faster, feel better and overall well-being. It also allows you to control your workout. An impulse is sent to the pods based on the muscle group you select to target which causes the muscles to activate. The feeling that it creates can be intense and bizarre at first, but you will get used to it in a few uses. It is also compact enough to carry on a holiday or trip and is available from £275 at PowerDot.
2. Visit: An Artificial Intelligence Start-up
Artificial intelligence is the future and it aims at making human life easier. With this view, a Delhi-based start-up VISIT was launched in 2016 which is an on-demand healthcare service online platform that provides its users with a pool of medical specialists and general physicians to choose from, for consultation. The facility has an artificial intelligence based ‘chatbot’ that acts as a digital assistant to provide ‘smart help’ to patients in getting a consultation from doctors. The chatbot comes with a USP that when a patient accesses it for help, it learns using the information given by the patient and uses the information to reinforce its decision network.
The chatbot tracks user’s activity, sleep, calories and fitness data to help them reach their goals with continuous reminders, insights, and motivation. The VISIT offers paid online consultation, through video and voice channels and seven days of free follow-up check-up over text chat. The service also maintains a pool of MBBS doctors who through its ‘Q’ service offer free health advice by text. The pool of 2200 doctors includes psychologists, dieticians, dermatologists, sexologists, gynecologists, preventive cardiology and pediatricians besides general physicians.
3. Snore Circle
A China-based firm VVFLY Electronics has developed a smart anti-snoring eye mask called Snore Circle priced at nearly INR 9700. Snore Circle is a smart wearable sleeping mask that comes with a little module that uses sound detection and bone conduction to identify when one is snoring. Once that is done, it sends out little vibrations to trick one’s brain into tightening one’s throat muscles. Once the throat muscles are tightened, snoring should subside. The vibrations on the Snore Circle adjust to your snoring level and are tuned well enough so that they don’t get so strong that people just end up waking up instead they are just enough to alter your throat muscles. The mask has an 80 mAh battery and can detect snoring by giving out vibrations at 36 levels. It allows the users to monitor and analyze their snoring, its intensity and decibel level along with sleeping data through its Snore Circle App.
US-based start-up Zipline has developed a drone that can deliver urgent medicines, blood and vaccines mid-flight. Hospitals can text orders to Zipline for the required products, which are packed at its centers and then launched aboard the drone that races along at over 100kmph. The autonomous drone then drops the package via parachute at the designated area. Zipline improves access to these supplies by flying over impassable mountains and washed-out roads, delivering directly to remote clinics. The supplies are centralized and provide on-demand deliveries, completely reducing waste and stock-outs. Zipline provides a seamless delivery system at an affordable price, obsessing over every
detail so that healthcare providers can solely focus on patient health. Zipline created national drone delivery system to ship blood and drugs to remote medical centers in Rwanda. Now the company has developed world’s swiftest commercial delivery drone, with a top speed of 128kmph (a hair shy of 80mph) with its extended services in Tanzania.
5. Livehealth
This is an endeavor to make medical reports smarter. This Pune-based start-up, founded in 2013, works as a management information system for healthcare providers by using Artificial Intelligence to process a huge data of medical records and ERP transactions. The system collects samples, manages patient records, diagnoses them, generates reports and aids in billing and inventory, making the process smarter and more efficient. In nutshell, it’s an effort that digitizes diagnostic lab workflows through its SaaS platform and makes them available on the cloud to patients and doctors. Doctors and consultants get access to their patient records using a mobile app and the patients can use the app to understand their reports, analyze their past health data and monitor their health using trackers.
Recently the company has raised US$1.1 mil from Nexus Venture Partners which it intends to use to expand its platform across India, explore international markets and to strengthen the product and technology. LiveHealth’s platform has digitized more than 72 million records, so far, and is delivering over 50,000 digital medical records to doctors and patients every day. The start-up works with more than 650 diagnostic centers across India and Africa to automate their operations i.e. to manage patients, financial transactions etc.
This Bangalore-based start-up, founded in 2016, uses artificial intelligence for a pain-free breast cancer screening. Recently, it had successfully raised money to scale up its efforts. The screening method can detect tumors five times smaller than what clinical examination can detect. It is a safe, non-touch, radiation-free, and low-cost method. Since it’s cost-effective and does not require heavy equipment this solution seems to be ideal for smaller towns where affordable health care is the need of the hour. Mammography works only for women over 40 and increasingly there has been a prevalence of breast cancer among young women, which makes a solution like this a welcome one. NIRAMAI uses a high-resolution thermal sensing device that scans the chest area like a camera. It then uses a cloud-hosted analytics solution for analyzing the thermal images. Its SaaS solution uses big data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning for reliable, early and accurate breast cancer screening. The innovative methods used in the solution have led to multiple US patents, and their novel algorithms have also been peer-reviewed in international scientific conferences. The startup has already started two clinical trials with established hospitals.
7. Hearing Fitness App
Denmark-based company Oticon, a giant hearing solution manufacturer has launched the world’s first hearing fitness tracking technology that helps track hearing aid use and provides insights you can use to optimize your health. The app is based on big data analytics that combines lifestyle and healthcare data with local sound environment analysis and is designed to measure the impact of one’s hearing on their health. This app was declared the winner of the 2018 CES Innovation Award in the software and mobile apps category. Health Fitness gives advice and encouragement to help users hear better and stay healthy.
Dry eyes affect millions of adults and its risk increases with advancing age. Keeping this acute eye problem in mind, Lumenis worked in this direction. Lumenis, world’s largest energy-based medical device company for surgical, ophthalmology and aesthetic applications is renowned for its technological breakthroughs in ophthalmic lasers and has a long list of industry gold standards. Lumenis’ latest M22 optimal pulse technology is the answer to a majority of eye inflammation treatments with optimal pulse technology (OPT). Mumbai’s renowned super specialty eye care Ojas Eye Hospital has brought in India Lumenis M22 Optimal Pulse Technology (OPT) for treatment of dry eyes.
The latest eye care technology is seen as a great revolutionary value addition to the ophthalmic applications especially for the treatment of dry eyes. The M22 services will be available at two branches of Ojas Eye Hospital, one at Bandra and the other at Kandivali. Recent studies have showcased prevalence of dry eyes among patients ranging across age groups. Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD) is one of the leading causes of dry eye disease (DED), affecting millions of people worldwide. Optimal pulse technology from Lumenis has emerged as the most effective alternative for patients, leading to significant improvement in ocular surface quality, gland function and dry eye symptoms. The Lumenis M22 OPT is an excellent technology for treating eyelid inflammation. OPT is selectively absorbed in the hemoglobin of abnormal blood vessels and destroys them by thrombolysis thereby treating the root cause of the problem leading to immediate relief, a safe and comfortable, fast ‘lunchtime treatment’ and improves the skin appearance too.
9. Karma Healthcare
Karma Healthcare, a Rajasthan-based start-up in the technology-led healthcare space has recently raised INR 3 crores from different investors. The start-up aims to provide high quality, affordable, equitable and reliable healthcare to India’s underserved population via a differentiated business model. The company has combined the human touch of a nurse with the scalability of shared doctor services via real-time online video consultations. It delivers healthcare to consumers via e-Doctor clinics. The effort is to have e-clinics Pan-India. The company thus seeks to make the definitive large-scale impact and in-turn take significant steps towards ‘healthcare for all’. So far, the company has given over 50,000 consultations and currently has 10 e-Doctor clinics in the states of Haryana and Rajasthan.
There is a comprehensive ecosystem of clinical treatment, quality medicines and diagnostics at competitive prices. The company has developed an in-house technology suite that helps it deliver standardized care including a bespoke Clinical Decision Support System and is extending its capabilities to deep learning driven diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. The company has backing from Tata Trusts, UBS Optimus Foundation, and WISH Foundation.
10. Haemophilia Care in India
Haemophilia is a genetic disorder of blood coagulation due to decreased levels or a complete lack of clotting factors that results in profuse bleeding into joints, muscles or internal organs either spontaneously or as a result of accidental or surgical trauma. Globally, India is among the top ten countries of people living with Haemophilia A1 with about 18000 cases. Studies have revealed that by the age of 25 years, 79% of people with Haemophilia are likely to become severely disabled if proper treatment is not provided. Efforts are being made to tackle this situation, so in April this year, Lok Nayak Hospital jointly conducted a one-day patient awareness program “Haem Utsav”, e-learning to empower Haemophilia care in India supported by Novo Nordisk, India. An updated Haemophilia India website (www.haemophiliaindia.com) has been launched for e-learning. Delhi Government has won a global award for introducing yoga sutra in Haemophilia, taken up advocacy and capacity building programs, launched skill-based training programs and a self-infusion program and created self-help groups for Haemophilia.
