Project description
Prevent strokes with your smartphone
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a condition that causes irregular and often rapid heart rate. It is the most common type of sustained cardiac arrhythmia, and it can lead to stroke. This is why early diagnosis of AF is important. However, classical AF detection methods such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and 24-hour holter monitoring have a less than 20 % success rate. In this context, the EU-funded RedStroke project is behind a new smart ICT solution for accurate and cost-efficient AF screening, aiming to prevent stroke based on technologies present in a standard smartphone. Specifically, AF screening will be carried out with ECG-comparable accuracy – instantly and with a smartphone only.
Objective
Stroke is the second most common cause of death and complex disability, accounting for ~1 million deaths in Europe each year. Total cost of stroke in the EU amounts to €65 billion a year. Main risk factor for stroke is atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common type of sustained cardiac arrhythmia. Early identification of AF can prevent strokes as treatment can be started on time. However, AF is difficult to capture and often not noticed. Classical AF detection methods (electrocardiogram [ECG] and 24 hour-holter-ECG) have less than 20% success rate. Plus these methods are costly and not suitable for routine large-scale screening. German SME company Preventicus developed a smart ICT solution for accurate and cost-efficient AF screening, aiming to prevent stroke, based on technologies present in a standard smartphone. Its technology is clinically proven in international studies (accuracy: 96%, predictive value: >99%). To ensure wide deployment as structured AF detection program, Preventicus has set-up clinical grade services surrounding its ‘core’ technology, e.g. Telecare service to verify AF suspects, to safeguard timely referral of the screened AF-patients to a cardiologist for AF confirmation and treatment initiation. The target market is an attractive high volume market (~150-200M end-users in Europe). Preventicus is the first European player in the market (all its competitors are US-based). As such, investments in the company will enhance Europe’s standing in the smart healthcare technologies market vis à vis the USA. Following successful commercialisation in Germany (~170,000 active users and sales to large health insurance companies), Preventicus is now ready to accelerate growth beyond Germany. Funding will allow the company to take the final steps needed for EU-wide roll-out, directly driving employment growth and profitability of the company (estimated cumulative revenues: €78 million in 2025, representing return of investment of >31 times the EIC grant)
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health scienceshealth scienceshealth care serviceseHealth
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinecardiologycardiovascular diseasescardiac arrhythmia
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencescomputer securitydata protection
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologystroke
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME - SME instrumentCoordinator
07743 Jena
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.