The scientific team behind the BAA start-up WARD 24/7 will play an important role in the fight against COVID-19 in the coming months.
During the past years, the founders Eske K. Aasvang, Christian S. Meyhoff and Helge B.D. Sørensen have been working on transforming the way patients are monitored in the general ward with artificial intelligence and wireless sensors. Their solution is a technology that interprets the patterns of different vital signs such as skin temperature, pulse, oxygenation and heart rhythm to predict destabilization.
Last week, the Novo Nordisk Foundation granted DKK 3.9M to Rigshospitalet, Bispebjerg Hospital and the Technical University of Denmark to implement an early version of this technology to minimize the number of close contacts between health care staff and hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Bringing the technology to market
In the current situation, health care staff must check on the COVID-19 patients frequently as many are unstable and show rapid unpredictable deterioration. To avoid contamination, the healthcare staff wears personal protective equipment which is both time consuming and a limited resource as more people become infected and need hospitalization during the pandemic.
“If the early version of the technology developed by our founders can make a difference in how we monitor corona patients, it could increase the capacity immensely at the hospitals in this difficult situation”, says Betina Langemark, CEO of WARD 24/7.
The technology is not yet licensed for commercialization, but the scientific team founded WARD 24/7 in 2019 to bring their technology to market. Just four weeks ago, the start-up joined the Business Acceleration Academy to speed up business development and attract investments. The work in the program is carried out by Betina Langemark in collaboration with Eske K. Aasvang, Christian S. Meyhoff and Helge B.D. Sørensen who are also dedicating time to further develop the technology which will now be used in the fight against COVID-19.
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