VinCense – Enabling preventive healthcare for everyone

MedloTek Health Systems, incorporated in 2016, is a unique startup that has leveraged technology to improve the quality of life for the masses. It has pioneered affordable medical care through an advanced remote patient monitoring platform integrating India’s first clinical grade wearable wireless health monitoring system – VinCense, providing efficient care for patients, unobtrusively and non-invasively.

“Considering the high cost of quality care today and its inaccessibility to the common man, we aim to transform and democratize healthcare delivery and management by developing mobile health technology that enables patients, senior citizens and persons suffering from chronic heart/lung diseases enjoy an improved quality of life at an affordable cost,” says Sharmila C Ganesan, Founder and Managing Director. Sharmila has over two decades of experience at leading positions in various engineering and managerial roles. She has won many accolades for her achievements in domains such as digital health, embedded systems and semiconductor IP.

Prof. A. Devadoss – Director Chairman & Senior Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Devadoss Multispeciality Hospital, Madurai and Founder, Institute of Orthopaedic Research and Accident Surgery adds, “Being from a medical background, we are aware of the hardships the bottom of the pyramid population faces in handling chronic diseases. We are aiming for socially inclusive, preventive healthcare that can reduce out of pocket expenses. From reducing mortality in children dying due to pneumonia and other respiratory diseases in under-developed countries through pre-screening, to facilitating emergency assistance for the elderly through remote monitoring, to improving patient outcomes for cardiac surgery patients through customized monitoring and sophisticated alert mechanism, our aim is to improve the quality of life at various levels at an affordable cost”.

What is VinCense?

VinCense comprises three components – a state-of-the-art wrist-wearable device, an Android application and a web-interface that captures vital signs wirelessly and pushes these into a secure cloud application. The web-interface enables doctors and other stakeholders to monitor the patient’s trend anytime, anywhere with the help of an intuitive, user-centred design with macro and micro views. The wearable is capable of clinical-grade monitoring of skin temperature, respiratory rate, pulse rate and oxygen saturation. It also has an emergency call button. The mobile app calls/sends out alert messages to five pre-configured numbers if the vitals go out of range and also presents the daily trend in a graphical format.

The VinCense remote Patient Monitoring Platform (PMP) is a monitoring platform that contains the output from the wearable third party devices such as Non-invasive Blood Pressure (NIBP), Glucometer and ElectroCardioGram (ECG), etc. It can also be integrated with VinDA (Data Aggregator) that collects data from all the other medical devices such as Multipara Monitor, Incubator, EEG machine, etc. The data from the VinDA can then be pushed into the PMP. Thus, the main objective of the PMP is to connect any medical device, anytime, anywhere.

“The aim is to standardize the user interface for remote monitoring for any medical device and provide an open source API to enable the same. The VinCense Remote PMP has an enormous potential in public health regarding screening and monitoring. Using this platform, low-cost screening and monitoring can be performed at just Rs. 35/person for screening and Rs. 45/day/person for monitoring,” explains Sharmila.

The journey so far

Within a year of its conception, MedloTek has achieved significant success for its highly useful technology with 50+ installations and 150+ orders. So far, the company has signed an MOU with Asia BioTech for distribution of its products and services in the ASEAN region. The company has also entered into research collaboration with IIT Madras to continue innovating in the field. Acknowledging its success and growing importance in the sector, ABI Research’s market research report on Remote Patient Monitoring Wearables featured MedloTek along with brands like Nonin in Feb 2017.

India’s first wearable device with clinical accuracy

The clinical grade wrist-wearable devices available in the market currently measure only two parameters – pulse rate and SpO2, and the cost is much higher than what MedloTek is offering.

Currently, the company is bootstrapped. Shortly, it plans to expand not only its repertoire of services but also its global footprint. Being the first to offer Respiratory Rate measurement from PPG in a wearable in India, MedloTek wearables are the only ones in India enabling automatic periodic collection of four vital signs – pulse rate, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate and skin temperature. The simple user interface ensures even unskilled persons can handle the system easily.

In the future, MedloTek aims to incorporate many more features such as ECG, EMG, GSR, fetal heart monitor, fitness, sleep patterns, pill reminders, dietary advice, assisted living, skin patch sensors, vernacular support and introducing an IOS app.

Emerging as a key global player in the field of Mobile Health specializing in remote patient monitoring space, MedloTek is all set to create a huge impact on preventive healthcare, reducing the global disease burden, improving the quality of life and democratizing healthcare.

Focusing on AI, Data Analytics, audio/vernacular, and visual support, the company aims to personalize healthcare leading to self-sufficiency in investigations and true social inclusion.

By creating and offering India’s first clinical grade wearable device at an affordable price, MedloTek has not only enabled preventive healthcare in India, but it is also bridging the gap between healthcare delivery and management. Through simple yet advanced systems, ongoing support and training for hospital personnel, the company has successfully introduced monitoring as a service in India that is poised to close the infrastructural gaps in healthcare and improve hospital workflows.