Background
More than 35% of people above 75 years are inactive. Yearly, more than 20,000 of these receive training in order to be able to cope in their own homes. In-between training visits, the citizens are left on their own.
The SENS motion® smart patch system is an easy, wearable solution that will increase efficiency, lower costs and improve the ability of rehabilitation in order to break the vicious circle of inactivity. It will do this by providing a link between the healthcare personnel and the citizens. Thereby allowing the health trainers to provide feedback, and target the citizens most in need. A prototype has already been tested on 10 patients.
The main customers for the product are the rehabilitation teams. Their primary requirement for the system is for it to be easy to use within the established process. Establishing a user interface, which will help the teams in being more efficient, is a clear focus point.
Input for the SENS motion® smart patch will be collected via qualitative interviews and questionnaires by the new employee funded in part by this project. The typical end-user is between 75 and 84 years old, single and still living in his/her own home.
Aim/Vision
SENS Innovation ApS was founded in 2014 with the aim of revolutionising the way our healthcare system uses daily physical activity in the treatment and prevention of a number of diseases. SENS motion® is a tool for health professionals to efficiently follow up and motivate larger patient groups and provide support for especially physically weak patients. The SENS motion® technology uses small and flexible disposable smart patches. The system has been developed with doctors, patients and health trainers to fit the rehabilitation process both at home and within a hospital setting.
The SENS motion® smart-patch platform needs to be significantly matured to be usable within the area of home rehabilitation. This product development process will be driven by the user inputs gained from Patient@home. This will enable SENS Innovation ApS to pilot the business case and product in real life. Product adaptations are planned in 2016 with a product ready for sales in the area of home rehabilitation in 2017.
The SENS motion® patch has been testedon more than 10 patients within the research areas of knee and hip arthritis as well as on stroke patients, by established research collaborators. The Parker Institute at Frederiksberg hospital has made the first large order for 100 prototype units for delivery in the middle of 2016.
These units will be based on the 2nd generation of SENS motion® patches, smart phone application and cloud storage database and will be delivered with the possibility of user inputs on both Android and IOS platforms.
Activities in the project:
- Pilot trials: Manage trials, collect empirical data and documentation
- Market validation: Updated Business plan for SENS
- CE marking of sensor patch: CE documentation
Expected Results
Efficient home rehabilitation will cause fewer hospitalisations and a higher quality of life with an estimated yearly saving for the Danish municipalities of 50 million DKK. Adding similar use cases with focus on rehabilitation after hospitalisation, diabetes, arthritis and back pains will increase the potential healthcare savings to 300-400 million DKK yearly.
The project will run from spring 2016 to autumn 2017.