With people becoming more and more Health-conscious and putting that extra effort into taking care of their health, the healthcare industry isn’t far behind, with digitization being the next obvious step. The founders of CliniCloud, Dr. Hon Weng Chong and Dr. Andrew Lin, tapped into this very trend to design a very innovative and novel product that caters to this growing need.
In their own words on their product site, they claim the need for the right tools to make better healthcare decisions for today’s patients who are more actively involved in their own care and equip them with such tools. The start-up’s first product, “StethoCloud, the Smart Stethoscope, won the 2012 Imagine Cup grant. Later the non-contact thermometer was added to the product line considering the temperature to be a crucial data point for diagnostic decisions.
Both these products let doctor’s check your vitals from The Cloud. The Bluetooth connected devices let consumers check their vitals, and the doctor will have access to the same via The Cloud. These devices track vitals such as temperature, heart rate and send the history of the recordings via the cloud to a physician who will diagnose without the patients having to leave their home.
According to Co-founder Dr. Andrew Lin, “The stethoscope and thermometer are the two most important tools we have in medicine for diagnosing common conditions; we are putting these powerful tools into the hands of everyday users, allowing them to accurately record vital signs that can be shared with their primary care doctor as well as a network of on-demand physicians to determine if a cough is just a cold or something more serious, like pneumonia or asthma.”
The non-contact thermometer scans temperature via the superficial temporal artery on the forehead, which CliniCloud claims is as accurate as an in-ear thermometer. It has the benefit of being able to take the temperature of a sleeping child without waking them. Meanwhile, the stethoscope uses a cord in the headphone jack rather than a Bluetooth connection to ensure high-quality lossless audio. Both these devices adhere to the standards set by the FDA for medical devices.
The start-up is planning to add more hardware devices to their product line, which will save time and energy of going out to the doctor physically and save on costs. A lot more healthcare is going to happen in the home in the future,” Lin says. “We fit in as part of that first step into telemedicine.”
However, one thing to keep in mind is that there’s always a price, and these kits sure don’t come cheap. They are available for pre-order on CliniCloud.com at $109, with the price expected to go up to $149 in the next month. The kits are officially expected to ship in July. The physician duo, who have been friends since medical school, is also working on retail brands to sell their devices.
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