An ex-NASA scientist, a doctor and two technicians have combined their expertise to develop a digital platform offering hyper-personalized healthcare to encourage people to live healthier lives.
The device, called HealthSignz, aims to change the face of personalized healthcare through highly accurate care analyzes. The project was launched late 2014 but the final version of the tool is only available for a few months and should be improved within a year.
Hyper-personalized services to improve health management
In India, preventive care and wellness segment is increasing by about 30% year on year according to official figures, and is currently estimated at $490 billion (460 billion €). Over the past decade, the number of digital healthcare platforms has grown substantially in the country, making health services more accessible.
However, four friends felt that there was still a need for further integration and personalization between primary, secondary and tertiary medical care.
Vinod Nair (44), ex-NASA scientist with a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Boston University, Ram Papa Rao (61), a doctor with over 30 years of experience, Hanumanth Rao (44), former GE, IBM and Infinite employee, and Surendranath C. (40), holder of a MBA in Marketing and International Trade (SIU, London), founded in Bengaluru late 2014 HealthSignz Technology with a view to developing an integrated healthcare application, focused on the seamless connection between the three levels of medical care.
Their aim is to enable users to live a healthier life through hyper-personalized health services.
A tool based on a strong analysis of users’ health data
The team – 130 people now – has spent the last three years to conduct research, to refine the product, to test it and to make adjustments based on users feedback to propose this year a final product.
The device facilitates real-time continuous health monitoring and provides health advice adapted to the profile of users through the measurement of certain tangible elements of their health and by subsequently developing a connection between patients and medical service providers.
Through HealthSignz, it is possible:
- to use diagnostic screening to track your state of health;
- to work on a symptom-based response;
- and submit to the user the results of the selection of the best doctor or centre for care, hyper-personalised nutrition and fitness plans, and evidence-based recommendations driven by PHR history.
All data are transmitted to the patient’s personal doctor, pharmacy and other health professionals connected to the tool; there is a compatibility with fitness, medical monitoring devices and other health interfaces such as EMR.
« Though there are several technological advancements, the frequency of disease occurrences has started to highlight huge lifestyle-related disorders, which if not addressed with holistic understanding of health management may have a deleterious effect on the quality of well-being of the population at large, » said Ram Papa Rao (Yourstory.com).
He added that if there was already predictive healthcare technology, such as Watson’s devices, it is usually only accessible for major healthcare organizations and not for consumers. The purpose of HealthSignz is to provide a health intelligence engine uniting consumers and medical specialists across the broad medical spectrum.
HealthSignz: the product is still being upgraded
The main chunk of HealthSignz’ revenue comes from services bookings made by users, customized packages and tie-ups with healthcare companies. The founders of the platform is looking to reach over 1.5 million customers by the end of 2017, with a revenue of $3 million (€ 2.8 million).
By the end of 2018, they also intend to clinical decision support systems. New services will be added gradually.