Australian start-up CliniCloud has created a kit that allows patients to perform their own check-ups at home.
Visits to the doctor can be time-consuming and often, in the end, unnecessary. At the same time, a check-up can provide much needed reassurance, particularly for those with young children. Health care is big business and doctors and patients are both looking for improved flexibility and efficiency in their interactions without sacrificing quality. At Springwise we have seen a wide range of tech solutions — from the WEMU T-shirts (which can detect epileptic seizures and call a doctor) to the Peek Vision app, which allows roving doctors to give patients smartphone eye exams in the field, and telepresence consultations and pharmacies. Now, Australian start-up CliniCloud enables individuals to give themselves a medical check-up in the comfort of their own home.
The start-up, co-founded by Andrew Lin and Hon Weng Chong, uses a stethoscope, a contactless infrared thermometer and an accompanying app.
The app guides users through the process of using the equipment and also enables patients to record, store and even send data such as temperature and heart or lung sounds direct to their family doctor.
Lin, who met Chong as a medical student at the University of Melbourne, says the app aims to streamline health care, ‘from people being treated quicker than they otherwise would, to unnecessary visits being avoided’. He continues: ‘whole goal as a company is to bring health care to the home. We wanted to create medical devices that consumers could actually use at home, that were innovative, and allowed doctors to do more things remotely.’
The company has also been working in collaboration with Doctor On Demand, an innovation that allows patients to pay for appointments with their doctor over the phone, to build the ‘first true integration of connected devices and a major telemedicine platform’. They have also been working with a number of insurers and health-care providers such as Astra Health Care, helping them to engage patients and offer affordable health care.
CliniCloud was founded in 2012 and has since grown to team of over 20. According to a CliniCloud spokesperson, the devices are registered with the US Food and Drugs Administration and Health Canada, and are available in the United States – from outlets such as BestBuy, Amazon, FSAStore and B8ta – and the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia via the online store. The next step for the company is to release their API/SDK, enabling partners to add not only CliniCloud devices to their platforms but other third-party devices as well. There are also plans to release two new products in the near future, although the company is being secretive about what these products could be. Dr Lin has said, ‘We’re fascinated by the potential that new technologies bring to health care and are particularly excited about the roles voice and AI technologies can play.’
This is not the first time we have seen smart home testing (we’ve covered various home STD testing kits before, such as the Hoope), but CliniCloud is exciting in its ability to cover a broader range of ailments and is certainly a taste of things to come.
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Website: www.clinicloud.com/en
Contact: support@clinicloud.com
Innovation name: CliniCloud
Country: Australia
Industries: Access exclusive / Health & Wellbeing