Medical technology company snap40 is pioneering real-time monitoring of patients’ vital signs, predicting problems before they happen – helping to save money, and save lives.
Co-founder Christopher McCann has “always been deeply interested in how we can build solutions to complex real-world problems”. With a background in engineering, followed by studying medicine, he’s leading a team “excited by using technology, science and design to solve problems that affect real people”.
“Many healthcare technology products are terrible – there is no or very little focus on user experience, and this directly leads to patient harm and healthcare staff fatigue,” Christopher adds. The key focus of snap40 is using wearable technology to constantly monitor someone’s medical condition, and using computer science to predict their risk of deterioration before it happens.
“We are trying to bring healthcare to people before they even know they need it,” he says. “We aim to detect, automatically, sickness and illness and bring healthcare to the individual to solve that,” with the potential to use the technology both in hospitals and at home, sending automatic alerts whenever the patient’s condition changes.
An early investment round raised £2.5 million to develop the product and grow the business, the largest ‘seed’ fundraising of its kind ever completed in Scotland. A clinical study last year proved the effectiveness of the product, a small device worn on a patient’s arm which records data constantly and communications wirelessly.
Applications of the technology range from automatically predicting the risk of a patient’s condition changing for the worse to massively reducing the time associated with observing vital signs, from an estimated two hours in a standard nurse’s shift to just two minutes. The potential benefits to the patient, and the healthcare service paying for their care, are huge.
“We have to meet the needs of patients, physicians, nurses, families as well as the management of large health services who are signing the cheques,” Christopher adds. “That makes for an interesting product challenge,” involving a balance between the product’s effectiveness, how it works for patients and healthcare professionals, and creating a successful business to support growth.
The company is now rolling out its product in hospitals across the UK, as well as expanding quickly into the United States. The ambition is clear, with the team aiming to build “a billion-dollar business that makes a significant impact within healthcare”.
“There’s nothing more rewarding than knowing the product you are building can come between someone and death, or long-term morbidity,” Christopher adds.
He also sees the forthcoming opening of V&A Dundee as important to inspiring more creative solutions, within healthcare and elsewhere.
“I think we need to expose young people more and more to the benefits of design, engineering and ultimately solving problems,” Christopher says. “For me, that’s what design and engineering are all about and there is nothing more rewarding.”
We’re delighted to add Christopher to V&A Dundee’s Design Champions, in recognition of his team’s incredible ambition – and their use of design to improve the lives of ill people, while also relieving pressure on healthcare professionals.
To find out more, please visit the snap40 website.
The V&A Dundee Design Champions are inspirational designers creating high-quality work and helping to enhance people’s lives, or champions of the power of design to improve the world.
We will announce 50 Design Champions in the run-up to the museum opening on Saturday 15 September 2018.
V&A Dundee’s Design Champions project is working with Dezeen as its media partner.
Dezeen is the world’s most popular and influential architecture and design magazine, with an audience of 2.5 million unique visitors each month.
