Express Healthcare features two of the speakers at the upcoming 7th Edition of TEDx Gateway
The overarching goal is to reach populations that can benefit most from soft bioelectronics solutions
Roozbeh Ghaffari, Nanotechnologist & Co founder, MC10, is one of the speakers at the 7th Edition of TEDX, to be held at Mumbai’s NCPA on December 4. The new generation of ‘stretchable wearables’ developed by his company are already being used by consumers, like L’Oréal’s My UV Patch. The BioStamp platform is also being used by eight out of the top 15 pharma companies in their research programmes. In an email interaction with Viveka Roychowdhury, he explains how such devices and platforms are well aligned with India’s public health needs in skin health, heart disease and pre-diabetes
Your company MC10 has won the 2016 IEEE Spectrum Emerging Technology Award as well as the CNS Summit 2016 Innovation Showcase Award for BioStamp, which you called a ‘body-worn computer.’ Wearables are changing the nature of health. Tell us the advantages of stretchable wearables, which can be worn like Band Aids or tatoos and some companies which are already your customers.
The BioStamp platform is the first generation of wearables with embedded stretchable electronics and sensors. The advantage of this technology is in the soft form factor and stretchability, which allow tight skin coupling on any location on the body. These devices provide capture (of) high quality physiological signals across multi-sensors. We have opened up the BioStamp for use by researchers across many disease areas. The implications for this technology are vast. Eight out of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies are using the BioStamp platform today to advance their research aims.
In 2008, a non-profit you co-founded, Diagnostics for All, was the top winner of MIT’s 100K Entrepreneurship Competition for developing a unique process for making simple medical test kits out of paper. These tests are not just inexpensive but also require very little sample size, only a single drop of blood, to provide a colour-coded response indicating the presence of any of several different diseases. Such tests are very relevant to India’s public health scenario, so could you tell us about how wide spread is the use of such tests globally?
Limited access to low cost diagnostics and monitoring solutions represents a global challenge affecting a majority of the world’s population. At MC10 and in my previous research, we have focused on developing soft bioelectronics that can be used in virtually any environment, in developing countries and rural settings. These devices are untethered and can transmit data wirelessly to anywhere in the world. Our WiSP platform and the My UV Patch are disposable solutions well aligned with India’s public health needs in the areas of skin health, heart disease and pre-diabetes.
Are you or your company looking for collaborators, on the technical or marketing side, in India? Has the BioStamp been used in India, given our different climatic conditions?
We are not currently selling BioStamp products in India, but do see many opportunities for future collaborations with researchers, academics and clinicians in India. The BioStamp and Wisp are built to function in different climates and in wet conditions. The overarching goal is to reach populations that can benefit most from these soft bioelectronics solutions.
Noora Health’s framework of care delivery helps hospital administrators, doctors deliver better, safer care
Noora Health Care’s Companion Program has reduced incidence of post-hospitalisation complications by as much as 71 per cent says Edith Elliott, Co-founder and CEO of Noora Health. The result is a better hospital experience for patients and families, reduced expenditure on re-hospitalisations as well as freeing up resources for hospitals to focus on serving new patients. Excerpts from an interaction with Viveka Roychowdhury
India’s traditional joint family system has broken down so the family support system is not as it used to be. Could you give us an example of how Noora Health can equip shrinking family support systems, so that even nuclear families can play more meaningful roles in caregiving?
The decrease in the traditional joint family structure creates a less resilient safety and support network for families. Due to this, interventions that better train and equip the limited nuclear families that may be left to support one another becomes even more relevant. The stresses and demands of caregiving only increase in these instances, and better training on mechanisms to cope and effectively keep a patient healthy is required. While before a whole village would raise a child, and take care of its elders — now more and more the few people around the ‘patient’ will need to be better equipped to effectively support one another.
Life style conditions like diabetes etc are assuming epidemic proportions in India. And these require lifestyle changes in the entire families. How does Noora Health tackle such cases?
Noora Health’s training is applicable to both acute recovery from medical interventions and sustained lifestyle changes needed to lead healthy lives in the face of chronic conditions. We achieve this by reaching people with actionable health information during their treatment at a medical facility, and follow this up with timely reminders for their health through our mobile tools. The curriculum is created with focus on only the skills that lead to prevention of medical complications related to a treatment or disease. Typically – patients are stuck either with too much or too little information, especially in the face of a chronic condition. For example, a doctor will only counsel the patient for 15 minutes on the most pressing concerns – those that are acutely medically relevant. In addition, if the patient goes further to seek information from disease management organisations, online resources, or other paramedical help, they are inundated with information about lifestyle changes that are difficult to adopt. This becomes overwhelming and results in lack of adherence and sustained behaviour change. Noora Health approaches this issue by focusing on what is critical, and engaging people with actionable information when they need it most.
Noora Health is essentially making patients and caregivers less dependent on medical professionals like doctors and nurses, but would this be a cause of conflict with hospital administration and doctors?
Noora Health’s framework of care delivery helps hospital administrators and doctors deliver better, safer care. While doctors and nurses are still required to medically diagnose and treat patients, the families will be there for the patient when it is time to take the patient home, outside the watchful eyes of clinicians at a healthcare facility. Families are allowed to play a role that is complementary to the clinicians, who are have more time to focus on the tasks that require their expertise. The patients and families have a better experience in the hospital, do not come back for re-hospitalisations that are preventable, and free the resources for hospitals to focus on serving new patients.
Are there any figures or studies that show that this approach actually curbs the rates of re-hospitalisation and ensures smooth transition to and proper care at home. Some conditions that benefit most from such an approach would be …
When compared to a control group, patients whose family members have gone through the Noora Health Care Companion Program have reduced incidence of post-hospitalisation complications by 71 per cent, reduced re-hospitalisations due to complications by 23 per cent, increased levels of highly satisfied patients by 40 per cent, reduced reported anxiety levels at hospital discharge by 6x, increased knowledge and confidence in patient families, sustained improvements in healthy behaviours 30 days post-discharge and significantly increased WHO-Quality of Life Physical Health.
All patients receiving treatment for a major medical condition can benefit from Noora’s framework for healthcare delivery. While we plan to have training (programmes) in all relevant clinical areas, we have thus far focused on patients in the areas of cardiology, cardiac surgeries, cancer care, neonatology/ maternal health and diabetes due to their high need for adequate family caregiving.