Berlin is knorke: Smart healthcare for patients
28. August 2023 - In the field of medicine, more and more smart solutions are now supporting nurses in monitoring patients. Thanks to digitalisation and artificial intelligence, good possibilities for prevention and control now exist. Wearables and robots are also being used, such as those from Uniwearables and Bearcover GmbH.
A small computer - also called a wearable - from the start-up Uniwearables promises to improve the quality of treatment for patients in hospital. This allows continuous monitoring of the health status to be ensured. The adhesive sensor pad, which is attached to the patient's chest, continuously sends the most important clinical parameters to the hospital's patient information system (HIS). Until now, patients were only monitored sporadically, which requires a lot of staff and paperwork.
The advantages of such a wearable, which is also conceivable for use in nursing homes and homecare areas, include:
- better healthcare and quality improvement of treatment
- a shortened hospital stay and fewer readmissions
- lower mortality due to early detection of a deterioration in health status
- the avoidance of operations (for example through the administration of antibiotics)
Uniwearables is a provider of cloud patient data systems and IOT hardware and is already working with leading health insurance companies and HIS providers. Thanks to a modular concept, there are diverse areas of application for the technology, which means that customised and individual solutions can be offered.
This meant that the Berlin company was able to secure first place as a young company for the capital region in this year's Startup Champs pitch competition. The competition is organised by the start-up strongholds Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich. Berlin Partner, Hamburg Invest, Köln Business, Munich Startup and Werk1 have been organising Startup Champs since 2020, which will take place in Berlin next year.
“Oscar” is the care robot from Bearcover, which works as a “night shift worker” and uses radar sensors to check on residents of nursing homes without entering their rooms. This is made possible by very special UWB sensors that can detect human movements - even very small ones - through closed doors.
"Oscar" glides along the corridors and informs the staff when a person has moved in the room or changed their position via an app. Movements can be detected up to a distance of eight metres. This check takes place about every 15 to 20 minutes, which means about 40 checks per resident per night. The automatic check means time savings for the nursing staff, who can thus concentrate on other activities. And: Oscar does not store any personal data, but collects all information anonymously from the start.
Bearcover GmbH has also received numerous awards. Among other things, the startup is one of the winners of the Deep Tech Award 2023 in the category for Artificial Intelligence