As part of Healthcare Purchasing News’ ongoing global healthcare coverage, I had the opportunity to attend this year’s MEDICA 2018 conference from November 14 to18, at the massive Messe Dusseldorf complex in Dusseldorf, Germany. The meeting is unique compared to most healthcare conferences in the U.S., which tend to focus on one medical discipline such as infection prevention, or surgical services. The expanse of MEDICA could be compared to Disneyland for healthcare product “foodies.” The exhibits include almost every product used in healthcare facilities, with sources from all over the world.
Products and education
One of the more intriguing products was an easy stethoscope cleaning solution from Stet Clean, a company based in Italy. A recent study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, revealed that stethoscopes were significantly contaminated with Staphylococcus and S. aureus. The Stet Clean solution is a wearable automatic device for the disinfecting of stethoscopes, using UV-C LED technology. The company also offers a desk or wall device for the disinfection of the stethoscope, specifically available to doctors and healthcare professionals where the stethoscope is shared.
Decision makers from the international healthcare industry are offered a large and unique range of topics in educational venues at MEDICA, the world’s largest medical trade fair, and the concurrently held internationally leading supplier trade fair COMPAMED in Düsseldorf, Germany. This years attendance topped 120,000 visitors from approximately 156 countries. The 5,273 exhibitors from 66 countries, set a new record for the conference. COMPAMED 2018 also included a record 783 exhibitors from 40 nations.
App Competition
The 7th annual MEDICA App Competition took place on Wednesday, November 14. Talented programmers and innovators from around the world submit their mobile solutions for healthcare problems.
This year’s 10 finalists presented their solutions on stage in front of a panel of judges. Apps included:
- Buddycare, an app to keep patients compliant for their care plan – pre surgery and afterwards.
- D-Eye, a retinal imaging system app to predict vision loss and glaucoma.
- FibriCheck, an app that detects cardio arrythmias and aFib identification in an effort to prevent strokes.
- MyFreescan, a cardio health management app that measures Arterial age using AI technology.
- medicospeaker, a communication tool for care givers that uses a translation tool for the healthcare sector.
- Perception, an app for people with visual impairment that can read prescription labels, help identify items, and help with navigation.
- Orthyo, a mobile app that monitors and measures a patient’s rehabilitation efforts and shares with their physiotherapist for any modifications needed.
- Tonic App, an app designed to assist doctors in their tireless diagnostic information needs that offers them vertical solutions and trusted clinical guidelines.
- Veta Health, an app that provides guided care pathways for patients and their care partners that integrates wearables and tracks patient behavior to their care regimen.
- Zencorlabs, an app with a whistle that monitors left ventricle pressure in the heart, enabling early detection of heart failure.
Dr. Moka Lantum, Muthu Singaram, Jury Captain MEDICA App
And the winner is…
FibriCheck, based in Belgium, was voted No. 1 by the 10-person international healthcare judges. Tonic App from Portugal came in second, and Veta Health from New York, took third place.
All winners came away with cash prizes, future training and mentoring for bringing their app to future healthcare populations, and the top winner also won a trip to the SXSW (South by Southwest) annual meeting in Austin, TX.
All the finalists had been selected from eighty submissions from around the world. Applications were received from Europe and North America as well as from Australia, Barbados, Ghana, India, Singapore and Thailand. Among the final top 10 who had the opportunity to present their innovations to the international professional audience at MEDICA 2018 were applications from Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.
The winning app FibriCheck” has already been approved by the FDA. During her live pitch presentation, Stephanie Vinckenbosch from “FibriCheck,” demonstrated how the app recognizes various cardiac arrhythmias with a smartphone camera and creates a report for both doctor and patient.
The app is based on photoplethysmograhpy, an optical measuring method that utilizes the fact that scattered light changes in accordance with the amount of blood contained in the skin’s blood vessels. In this procedure, the smartphone’s LED flash is used to sufficiently illuminate the user’s finger. The skin scatters the light. The intensity of the scattered light vibrates with the amount of blood that the heart pumps into the illuminated fingers. As a result, the camera passes information on the oscillations of the scattered light to the app. With the aid of artificial intelligence, the app then detects if there are cardiac arrhythmias.
In Belgium, FibriCheck” is already available with a prescription and is available as a free download. Doctors simply hand their patients a piece of paper with a QR code. Patients then use this code to activate the app on their smartphone.
FibriCheck” plans to raise awareness for their digital screening solution with previously symptomless users by offering them the chance to use it. They offered QR code printed in a local newspaper so readers could download and activate the app and contact their doctor if any abnormalities were diagnosed. As a result, over 12,000 users created 120,000 reports within 48 hours. The app diagnosed atrial fibrillation in 136 users (1.1%) and 2,111 users (17%) showed other arrhythmias. Measurements taken by 191 users (2%) had insufficient quality for an analysis. FibriCheck” has already received the CE symbol as a Class IIa medical screening and monitoring device for identifying irregular cardiac rhythms. What about the competition? Apple Watch may have a similar feature, however, using it requires owning a smartwatch. All FibriCheck” needs is a smartphone.
App for doctor burn out
The Portuguese developers of the Tonic App, on the other hand, address doctors directly and exclusively.
“Our app offers everything doctors need. Doctors are burned out,” explained Daniela Seixas, CEO of Tonic App, in her presentation, the pressure of time and costs are mainly responsible for this and be knowledgeable about new research that could affect patient outcomes.
“They have to handle a knowledge base that is steadily growing as well as a variety of interest groups.” This has created demand for a mobile all-in-one solution that enables doctors to find everything and everyone they need, and vice versa, allowing relevant interest groups to also find the right doctor. The app is therefore a platform for doctors that is similar to LinkedIn and gives them access to recommendations, case discussions, guidelines, coding recommendations, news, jobs and networks.
“We are building a medical ecosystem using mobile phones, the internet and our partners,” remarked Seixas. The app aims to help physicians by providing doctors with the often scattered resources they need for their daily work. This has proved a big hit in the app’s country of origin, Portugal. Tonic App is also already available in Great Britain, France and Spain.
The third place winner is Veta Health from the U.S. The app offers a front end platform that supports patients on their journey through treatment,” said co-founder Dr. Nora Zetsche.
The app enables over 400 wearables to be integrated and offers information in real-time on the patient’s level of health.
The clinically-integrated platform gathers and analyzes essential information from patients in real-time to optimize clinical pathways for better patient health outcomes and to easily understand care protocols. In this way, for example, the adherence to therapy in medication can be optimized and undesired drug effects can be better observed. The app also complies with the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Start up park
In addition to sessions running throughout the conference on medical innovation, new start-ups gave presentations every day in the “MEDICA DISRUPT” initiative, held within the scope of the MEDICA CONNECTED HEALTHCARE FORUM and the MEDICA App Competition. A total of over 50 start-ups presented solutions for everything from treating skin cancer and chronic conditions to telemonitoring and tracking of vital signs and activity.
Kristine Russell | Publisher Emeritus
Kristine Russell is Publisher/Executive Editor, Retired
Healthcare Purchasing News, EVP, Healthcare Division, Endeavor Business Media LLC.
