BusinessCloud is counting down the technology which could save your life.
Scottish start-up Snap40 has created a tool which can ensure healthcare staff can easily identify high-risk patients, both at home and in hospital, and allow them to take potentially life-saving action sooner rather than later.
Medical student Christopher McCann founded Snap40 in July 2014 after witnessing patients deteriorating because warning signs were recognised too late.
He left medical school less than a year later to focus full time on the business.
Snap40’s device continuously monitors seven vital signs including blood pressure and respiratory rate and also provides medical staff with automated risk analysis to pinpoint if a patient is low or high risk.
This allows low-risk patients to be discharged earlier and monitored at home, while those considered high risk can have preventative action taken sooner.
It also means medical staff are not required to take manual measurements and therefore frees up their time, as well as helping to reduce the length of hospital stays for some users.
There are many other firms changing the face of healthcare with technology.
Qardio produces a range of healthcare monitoring devices allowing users to monitor their heart, blood pressure and weight.
Heart disease, one of the biggest killers in the UK, can be detected using Alivecor’s smartphone system which takes a 30-second ECG reading.
One key area is ensuring that patients are taking the medicines they’re prescribed – which is where eLucid mHealth comes in.
Skin Analytics is a tool which aims to improve the survival rate for melanoma skin cancer by providing users with a low-cost way to identify moles which could be cancerous.
Florence is a telecom-based tech is looking to reduce hospital admissions and keep people in their homes for longer.
Dublin-based start-up Beats Medical helps to improve the lives of those with Parkinson’s disease.
And Eva Diagnostics is a company whose aim is to revolutionise blood tests so they can be analysed without a hospital laboratory – potentially improving the lives of people undergoing chemotherapy.