Lung function device to aid COVID-19 management in care homes

The COVID-19 pandemic raises particular challenges for the 400,000 UK care home residents, their families and the key staff that look after them. Recent guidance from the British Geriatric Society has been developed to help care home staff and NHS staff who work with them to support residents through the pandemic. This guidance recommends that where possible, care home staff should be trained and equipped to measure vital signs including temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, pulse oximetry and respiratory rate. This will enable external healthcare practitioners to triage and prioritise support of residents according to need.

We aim to develop a simple, low cost, portable device to monitor the essential vital signs providing useful actionable measurements in a few minutes. This device has direct relevance in the current COVID-19 crisis where it can be used alongside other front-line care solutions to identify and monitor people at risk of respiratory problems. It would be designed to be easy to use for care home staff. This new solution would protect them, and the people they care for improving their quality of life and help them live longer.

The device, which could be directly utilised in care homes and community settings works by monitoring the lung function allowing very early indications of any abnormalities and also the progression of illness -- directly relevant in COVID-19, but with broader healthcare application beyond the current crisis.

The impact funding will be fundamental in achieving the rapid market deployment of our innovative new device for the early detection of COVID-19 infections and identification of patients at risk of deterioration. The project has enabled a rapid technological development to prototype and the impact funding will allow us to progress the associated commercial developments at a pace that would otherwise be difficult.

The funding will allow us to move ahead with health and safety assessment with external partners ahead of a clinical study to obtain clinical validation of the device. We will also progress our discussions with end users such care home managers, and other potential partners. We aim to thoroughly ‘field test’ and refine our value proposition, develop our business model and commercialisation plan. This further validation work will be inform our new business plan for a planned fundraising effort in the next 6-12 months to support full commercialisation, scale up, and growth.

The ultimate impact will be in getting our product into the market where it will support a preventative model of care allowing for early intervention to keep people out of hospital and reduce the burden on the health care system. The project extensive will also position the company for future global growth. For example, COVID-19 has caused a massive acceleration in the use of telehealth. For example in the US consumer adoption has skyrocketed from 11 % of US consumers using telehealth in 2019 to 46% of consumers now using telehealth to replace cancelled healthcare visits.