In an effort to address overlooked gaps in pediatric medicine, 10 digital health and medical device teams are participating in an initiative to help children’s hospitals identify innovative ways to solve challenges in healthcare. They represent a wide variety of challenges from dealing with night terrors to central line infections and the interest in noninvasive approaches for taking images of kidney stones.
Impact Pediatric Pitch includes judges from children’s hospitals and venture firms. It’s intended to not only encourage hospitals to identify technologies that could be commercialized faster but also provide a way for entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to hospitals. It reflects a trend that has been happening on a smaller, regional scale with pediatric medical device consortia.
Historically pediatrics is frequently overlooked by medical device companies because it is a much smaller market than the adult market. Add to that the fact that kids are growing or may need customized devices. The reduction in the cost of 3D printing has made it easier to produce prototypes and that’s helping with collaboration. As some investors see it, some of the technology under development could also be useful for the adult market.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
The pitching event is produced by Energizing Health, a Kauffman Foundation initiative that works with healthcare organizations and early stage medtech and digital health companies to advance innovation. It’s also emceed by Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban.
Participants were eligible for seven awards: three from judges representing children’s hospitals, another three from judges representing venture capital firms and one from Cuban.
Update CareAline won first place in each group, including Cuban’s prize. Medical Informatics placed second with the hospitals and venture capital judges. Lully placed third with the VCs. SonoMotion won third place for the hospitals.
Here’s a look at the companies taking part.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
- Care Monster is a calendar that also functions as a care coordination tool to reduce stress of families with sick children in the hospital, keep friends and family up to date on the child’s condition and share feedback simultaneously with how each visit went. The company initially developed the app for longterm care, but has expanded into pediatrics. It charges hospitals a subscription for using its care coordinator and so far works with 40 care providers, which include hospitals and nursing homes, and 2500 families. It claims that 75 percent of families continue to use its app after the first week.
- Medical Informatics Corp developed a patient monitoring platform for hospitals called Sick Bay initially for clinical research projects. It collects patient data from medical devices and uses algorithms to spot signs of deterioration to create a smarter alarm system to avoid alarm fatigue. It also developed a second application of its platform for clinical decision support. Unlike many health It companies, it relies on the hospital’s servers.
- Owlet Baby Care uses a smart sock worn on an infant’s foot to collect data on heart rate, oxygen levels, skin temperature and movement using a pulse oxymeter within the sock. The wearable is designed to be much smaller than a typical off the shelf device would be. It developed its initial product for the consumer market but a clinical version of the monitor is also in the works. In an example of the smart sock’s merit, the company said it was able to detect sleep apnea in a newborn infant. Provided users agree to it, the company wants to use data from the devices to build a dataset on infant health.
- NarrativeDx created a way to analyze patient feedback based on CAHP surveys, internal hospital documents and what they post on physician rating and hospital websites. The goal is to help hospitals better understand patient needs so they can improve the patient experience and avoid a reduction in reimbursement from low CAHP scores.
- Bloom Technologies is developing a clinically accurate wearable for pregnant women to tackle pre-term births. It combines pregnancy tracking with data analytics to give women better insights into their health and their body during pregnancy. One of its goals is that women who use its technology will share their data and contribute to a dataset to develop new insights for prenatal health.
- CareAline Products developed a sleeve for central lines to prevent infections. The short term goal is to prevent accidental line removals or disruption, and reduce exposure to contaminants that could cause infection. The long range goals are to reduce hospital admissions, line replacement surgeries, treatment delays, and other healthcare costs.
- SonoMotion wanted to provide a way to do noninvasive treatment for kidney stones. It’s developing two approaches to the problem, which affects 10 percent of the population. Another problem the company identified is that even when stones are moved particles can get left behind. Its Stone Clear treatment uses low-intensity ultrasound to takes images of kidney stones and move them out of kidneys with a diagnostic ultrasound probe — a procedure that could be done in the OR, ER or physician’s office, according to the company. Urologists would use the imaging tool to determine the location and size of the stone and push small stones and residual fragments out of the kidney. It claims to have successfully repositioned 14 of 15 patients’ stones as part of a clinical trial to demonstrate fesasibility. Break Wave, its second product, uses lithotripsy method that applies broadly focused bursts of ultrasound, rather than shockwaves, to break down stones into minute particles that are small enough to exit the body through urine.
- FlowBrush combines a toothbrush with a spirometer to provide a way for children with asthma to daily monitor their lung function. It doesn’t require users to have a computer — the data from these tests are automatically transmitted to their respiratory therapist’s computer. It also uses a call center to alert parents when data indicates that children have symptoms of an asthma attack before it happens. The call center is also used to coordinate access to preventive care at retail and urgent care clinics.
- Lully seeks to prevent night terrors in children. It developed a device that uses a “vibration-based technology” that goes under the mattress and works with a companion app. The problem with night terrors is that it is not about bad dreams but about the stage of sleep the child is in. The device is designed to help children stay in a “safe stage of sleep.”
- Nuvo Group developed a werarable sensor that functions as a pregnancy monitoring tool called PregSense. It’s developing a consumer facing version that monitors fetal heart rate, maximum heart rate, kicks and sleep state. It is also developing a clinical facing tool that will use data generated by the devices to extract insights on heart and heart rate variability that could potentially lead to the early detection of problems such as cardiac distress, hypoxia and decreased fetal movements.
Updated This story has been updated from an earlier version
