At MedCity INVEST, held this week at the Ritz Carlton in Chicago, Canadian healthcare startups presented their technologies and explained how they plan to address pain points in healthcare across health tech, medtech and biopharma.
Presented by the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago, which is currently celebrating the 75th anniversary of its diplomatic presence in the Midwest, the Canadian healthcare startup showcase included five companies. Entrepreneurs from each company presented their businesses plans in a session moderated by Kelsey Tsai, vice president, The Blue Venture Fund.
OPTT Health CEO Mohsen Omrani presented its screening and triage tool aimed at patients to assess mental health needs and can be used to monitor and track patient treatment.
“Predicting drop off and improving patient engagement to retain patients are among the biggest challenges in mental health,” Omrani said after his pitch.
Array Health and PursueCare are among its recent collaboration partners, Omrani noted.
Hyivy Health presented its Floora pelvic rehab system to help women strengthen their pelvic floor through physical therapy home exercises that can be tracked through a companion app used by patients and a software program for clinicians. More broadly, the company supports patients with endometriosis, pelvic cancers and vaginismus. Its goals are to reduce muscle tension, pelvic pain and nerve damage while improving sex, bowel and bladder function, and natural lubrication. For clinicians Hyiv Health seeks to reduce cost per patient, referrals and ER visits.
True Angle Medical developed a digital tool to help people who have difficulty swallowing food or liquid referred to as dysphagia. The causes can be diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, stroke, medication or cancer treatment, and accidents such as traumatic brain injury. The company developed a device embedded with a sensor using electromyography that fits under the patient’s chin. It tracks patients doing home exercises to improve their condition. The sensor detects and tracks the exercises and transmits biofeedback to the user’s companion app on an iPhone or iPad. The company also enables the exercise data to be shared with clinicians so they can track their patients’ progress and make adjustments as needed. Looking ahead, the company seeks to add other product verticals.
Careteam Technologies offers clinical decision support tools that can help create personalized dynamic care plans, increase patient engagement, and assist with population health management. It helps clinicians work with patients to manage chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. The company helps clinicians to aggregate personalized care plans for patients with complex and chronic health issues. Patients and their caregivers can share those aggregated plans with the patient’s care teams. Healthcare organizations can track the care plans and ascertain whether they are followed, supporting intervention if necessary. The goal is to reduce healthcare costs by reducing avoidable hospitalizations.
Able Innovations seeks to improve lateral patient transfer in healthcare settings and reduce the physical strain on healthcare staff, particularly nurses. Some of the injuries nurses incur by lifting patients can be career ending and contribute to fatigue and burnout. Able’s ALTA device seeks to move patients in a way that is dignified for patients and reduces the need for more than one nurse to move patients.
The winner of the Canadian showcase, chosen by the audience, was Hyivy Health.
Photo: Getty Images
