Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SWORD (Advanced Analytics Platform for Stroke Patients Rehabilitation)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2016-06-01 al 2017-06-30
Annually, 6.5 million people worldwide suffer a stroke and are left with some degree of physical impairment that will require long-term intensive and effective motor rehabilitation programs. The global trend is for this value to rise, signifying a growing market’s demand for rehabilitation services and a need for a democratized access.
At SWORD Health we believe the solution is in the wise combination of novel neuroscience-driven therapeutic methods with effective technologies. We have developed an innovative system that allows the sustainable delivery of a more efficient motor rehabilitation to stroke patients, providing a rich source of data for clinicians and decision makers. The SWORD system was specifically designed to be used by the patient at the hospital or at home, with little or no supervision, extending the therapeutic footprint and empowering the patient with his rehabilitation. The proposed system enables patients to accelerate their recovery with a more intensive and a higher quality therapy. At the same time, SWORD incorporates data mining algorithms specifically designed so that clinicians get continuous access to valuable data and advanced analytics, in order to coordinate teams, improve care, accelerate recovery and reduce time to achieve functional outcomes. For rehabilitation centres, the SWORD system allows for a higher profit margin per therapy unit through a more efficient allocation of specialized human resources.
At SWORD Health we believe the solution is in the wise combination of novel neuroscience-driven therapeutic methods with effective technologies. We have developed an innovative system that allows the sustainable delivery of a more efficient motor rehabilitation to stroke patients, providing a rich source of data for clinicians and decision makers. The SWORD system was specifically designed to be used by the patient at the hospital or at home, with little or no supervision, extending the therapeutic footprint and empowering the patient with his rehabilitation. The proposed system enables patients to accelerate their recovery with a more intensive and a higher quality therapy. At the same time, SWORD incorporates data mining algorithms specifically designed so that clinicians get continuous access to valuable data and advanced analytics, in order to coordinate teams, improve care, accelerate recovery and reduce time to achieve functional outcomes. For rehabilitation centres, the SWORD system allows for a higher profit margin per therapy unit through a more efficient allocation of specialized human resources.
During the period of report, the following objectives were achieved partially or totally:
• Optimize the mobile application – Completed
• Develop a scalable and robust web-based console – Completed
• Develop the SWORD analytics engine, implementing machine learning techniques to extract important metrics and parameters from data collected and stored in the data warehouse, and also develop off-line signal processing methods that are able to analyse patient data and generate automatic performance reports – In progress
• Validate and test our technology in a relevant clinical environment (rehabilitation centres, hospitals) – Clinical Trials are already being designed for implementation. In addition, three first national pilots are running.
• Implement a supply chain that allows the industrialization of the proposed solution – During the period of report Sword Health was in Amesterdam, The Netherlands, in a network meeting with hardware suppliers for motion trackers.
• Be present in the most important trade fairs in the area of medical devices – In the first 11 months of the project SWORD was presented in ChinaSourcing Summit, Aging 2.0 Summit Conference, Global Start-up and in the European Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.
• Attract private venture capital – So far Sword Heath was present in Investment Roadshows in two events of Aging 2.0 Summit (September and November 2015) and pitching for stakeholders and investors in Austin Global Start-up.
• Perform the certification process that will grant the CE mark – In progress.
• Optimize the mobile application – Completed
• Develop a scalable and robust web-based console – Completed
• Develop the SWORD analytics engine, implementing machine learning techniques to extract important metrics and parameters from data collected and stored in the data warehouse, and also develop off-line signal processing methods that are able to analyse patient data and generate automatic performance reports – In progress
• Validate and test our technology in a relevant clinical environment (rehabilitation centres, hospitals) – Clinical Trials are already being designed for implementation. In addition, three first national pilots are running.
• Implement a supply chain that allows the industrialization of the proposed solution – During the period of report Sword Health was in Amesterdam, The Netherlands, in a network meeting with hardware suppliers for motion trackers.
• Be present in the most important trade fairs in the area of medical devices – In the first 11 months of the project SWORD was presented in ChinaSourcing Summit, Aging 2.0 Summit Conference, Global Start-up and in the European Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.
• Attract private venture capital – So far Sword Heath was present in Investment Roadshows in two events of Aging 2.0 Summit (September and November 2015) and pitching for stakeholders and investors in Austin Global Start-up.
• Perform the certification process that will grant the CE mark – In progress.
The project’s aim is to supply a high-tech solution enabling hospitals and medical specialists to provide a more intense and effective post-stroke rehabilitation in a clinical or ambulatory setting. We intend to present a whole intelligence system which includes data mining, analytics, data warehousing and management, all together based on cloud technology that will enable to extract valuable metrics and parameters providing guidelines about intervention and future recovery. We want to be “the” flagship company in the field of motor rehabilitation, serving an international market.
The majority of the systems on the market are either based on robotics, camera based or electrical stimulation systems. These systems imply a high complexity of use, demanding a constant supervision from a trained clinician and therefore are limited to be used outside the clinical environment or are not suited for a qualitative physical rehabilitation. Furthermore, the great majority lack the ability to extract important metrics and parameters from large scale patient data as these are not stored and analysed centrally using a networked and cloud infrastructure.
The SWORD system has a differentiated value proposition that, contrary to the existing technological solutions in the market, targets its use for full ambulatory use - the holy grail of motor rehabilitation – having been validated as an efficient rehabilitation tool.
For the patient, the value proposition is clear. With the SWORD system, the process of recovery takes place at home and the patient gets a significant increase in the intensity of rehabilitation that will lead to a faster recovery. Furthermore, the continuous documentation of the recovery process allows for a direct quantification of all the small victories that are crucial for his motivation and subsequent adherence to the demanding rehabilitation program.
For the physician, the SWORD system is going to represent a more efficient and effective tool to manage each rehabilitation program with a greater insight. Furthermore, the SWORD Core gives clinicians access to data, results and a whole intelligence system. Based on results from a large network of rehabilitation centres and patients, the clinician can have access to suggestions and protocols that will help him to decide what the best rehabilitation treatment for each specific patient is. Also, it will allow him to compare his performance with other professionals, in terms of the rehabilitation success of patients in similar situations.
The use of this pioneering system in outpatient rehabilitation clinics will represent a competitive advantage against more traditional approaches. Since the SWORD system can be used with remote supervision of the physician that can have access to his patients’ results through the web console, the institution can treat more patients and better with the same staff costs. It will also be able to present better results than competition since it will have access to a powerful tool that will give information about best practices and treatment standards. This information will be available thanks to the great amount of information analysed by the system in order to obtain trends and optimize each treatment for each specific situation. The system allows for the Clinic/Hospital to increase its average revenue per user. In terms of financial feasibility, the therapy based on the use of the SWORD system implies low fixed costs and high contribution margins per therapy unit.
The SWORD system allows for a cost-effective therapy that provides a higher intensity of training, with a greater quality, while keeping costs low.
Due to the baby boomer generation, the market’s demand for rehabilitation services will continue to rise. It is projected that the prevalence of stroke will increase by 25% in the next 20 years. In Europe stroke accounts for around 2 Million people per year. Stroke is estimated to cost the EU economy over €38 billion a year. Of the total cost of stroke in the EU, around 50% is due to direct health care costs, 22% to productivity losses and 29% to the informal care of people with stroke.
Our vision for the SWORD system meets the challenge of providing a more efficient rehabilitation therapy to patients without increasing its underlying costs. We believe that this can only be achieved with a correct implementation of technology that enables complex systems to be used by a patient at his home.
The majority of the systems on the market are either based on robotics, camera based or electrical stimulation systems. These systems imply a high complexity of use, demanding a constant supervision from a trained clinician and therefore are limited to be used outside the clinical environment or are not suited for a qualitative physical rehabilitation. Furthermore, the great majority lack the ability to extract important metrics and parameters from large scale patient data as these are not stored and analysed centrally using a networked and cloud infrastructure.
The SWORD system has a differentiated value proposition that, contrary to the existing technological solutions in the market, targets its use for full ambulatory use - the holy grail of motor rehabilitation – having been validated as an efficient rehabilitation tool.
For the patient, the value proposition is clear. With the SWORD system, the process of recovery takes place at home and the patient gets a significant increase in the intensity of rehabilitation that will lead to a faster recovery. Furthermore, the continuous documentation of the recovery process allows for a direct quantification of all the small victories that are crucial for his motivation and subsequent adherence to the demanding rehabilitation program.
For the physician, the SWORD system is going to represent a more efficient and effective tool to manage each rehabilitation program with a greater insight. Furthermore, the SWORD Core gives clinicians access to data, results and a whole intelligence system. Based on results from a large network of rehabilitation centres and patients, the clinician can have access to suggestions and protocols that will help him to decide what the best rehabilitation treatment for each specific patient is. Also, it will allow him to compare his performance with other professionals, in terms of the rehabilitation success of patients in similar situations.
The use of this pioneering system in outpatient rehabilitation clinics will represent a competitive advantage against more traditional approaches. Since the SWORD system can be used with remote supervision of the physician that can have access to his patients’ results through the web console, the institution can treat more patients and better with the same staff costs. It will also be able to present better results than competition since it will have access to a powerful tool that will give information about best practices and treatment standards. This information will be available thanks to the great amount of information analysed by the system in order to obtain trends and optimize each treatment for each specific situation. The system allows for the Clinic/Hospital to increase its average revenue per user. In terms of financial feasibility, the therapy based on the use of the SWORD system implies low fixed costs and high contribution margins per therapy unit.
The SWORD system allows for a cost-effective therapy that provides a higher intensity of training, with a greater quality, while keeping costs low.
Due to the baby boomer generation, the market’s demand for rehabilitation services will continue to rise. It is projected that the prevalence of stroke will increase by 25% in the next 20 years. In Europe stroke accounts for around 2 Million people per year. Stroke is estimated to cost the EU economy over €38 billion a year. Of the total cost of stroke in the EU, around 50% is due to direct health care costs, 22% to productivity losses and 29% to the informal care of people with stroke.
Our vision for the SWORD system meets the challenge of providing a more efficient rehabilitation therapy to patients without increasing its underlying costs. We believe that this can only be achieved with a correct implementation of technology that enables complex systems to be used by a patient at his home.