Firm’s smart monitors can check patients remotely and help save lives

studying medicine at Dundee University, brought painfully home when his grandmother became ill, convinced him earlier intervention could help countless patients.

“I was frustrated that we perceived we recognised patients deteriorating later than we would have ideally liked and wanted to try and build some product that could detect those patients for physicians and nurses, way earlier than we currently can.ultimately, I thought if I could get the physicians and nurses to see that patient earlier that would probably be a good thing,” he says.

“We then realised one of the only ways of doing that was to build a device to monitor the patient in real time.”

The prototype sits on the upper arm of the patient and monitors them across more vital signs than similar devices “with the same accuracy as an ICU monitor beside the bed”.

“Then we are trying to take all of the data from that to take to the physician or the nurse to say we think this is the patient who requires some kind of attention from you, and you might want to go and review them.”

He said the device would be a critical assistant to medical staff but could not replace human intervention.

“We really are an assistive tool to the physician and the nurse and, to get them to the patient who most needs their attention at that point, we do that at the hospital and the home.

“At the very initial genesis of the company we were very focused on in-hospital. We thought it would be the most useful and most valuable there because right now every hospital spends several nursing years of time every single year just collecting vital signs from the patient.

“That is definitely true, but what we’ve also found is there is significant interest and scope to do this in people’s own home.

“As our society gets older, we suffer more chronic diseases. In the UK and US we have to adjust our patient healthcare so more is being done in the patient’s home.”

However, he said: “The patient’s home is effectively a black hole. Once the patient is there we have very little idea what is happening with them.

“If we can monitor them passively at home and work out whether things are going wrong that can be of great assistance to help care providers and the patient in keeping them alive.

“We have already seen patients whom we have prevented having to go into hospital because we brought attention to them earlier. That is not only exceptionally good for the health system in terms of money, but the ability to stop someone having to go into hospital can save someone’s life and have a dramatic impact on them and their family.

“So it is quite a cool company you get to build.”

Mr Mccann points out: “We had one patient, in particular, who was beginning to show a significant deterioration in their vital signs and that was detected by the nursing team, who were able to then reach that patient and provide treatment in their own home.

“Their care physician said in their view the patient did not have to be admitted at that point. The cost saving was significant but the impact on that person’s life is enormous.

“We sell on a monthly subscription model so we are effectively trying to almost become a mobile phone contract to safeguard a life.

“The exact price is variable but the point is can we for a relatively low monthly cost do that, and contrast that to the technical model of buying products, which is an enormous upfront capital cost.

“An ICU monitor can be £5-15,000, plus a significant ongoing service contract. We wanted to make that a lot simpler.”

The idea was well received at its

2014 inception by backers such as Scottish Institute of Enterprise,