Making heart health awareness available to everyone!

UPOlife saves lives, by prognosing and helping to prevent heart disease conditions up to 2 months before they occur while educating and suggesting adequate remedies.

At the moment the current estimated ratio of only one registered physician per 1,847 people in Bangladesh(0.54 per 1000) and 800 total cardiologists in the whole country, is simply no good.

Our solution offers a simple 60-second handheld ECG reading, which is analyzed by a cloud-based AI algorithm, which replies with predictions, recommendations and health analysis for the patient and serves as a decision support tool for doctors if the attention is needed.

Patients access their progress report using an understandable dashboard on their phones or desktop, while doctors can access deeper analytics and raw data.

UPOlife solution applied in Bangladesh would change millions of lives and would potentially save up to 37,669,680,000 takas in health budget spendings.

The challenge we are addressing is the fact, that there are simply not enough physicians and cardiologists for each Bangladesh citizen, the current estimated ratio of only one registered physician per 1,847 people in Bangladesh and 800 cardiologists per whole nation is disturbing, since there are many deaths, which could be prevented.

At the moment around 30%(https://www.who.int/nmh/countries/bgd_en.pdf?ua=1) of death causes in Bangladesh are related to CVD’s(Cardiovascular diseases), which is the top cause of death, but potentially 80% of it can be prevented with our solution. (20% are incurable)

Adults and 40+-year-old citizens who could bring huge amounts of economic value to Bangladesh already have heart health issues. Instead of adding to the total economy, they start using the healthcare budget.

A high CVD prevalence along with an upward trend was observed in Bangladeshi adults in a research review by https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6110270/, which means that this trend will grow and cause more havoc upon the adults!

Our solution saves time on doctor visits, travel expenses, re-admissions and health budget expenses in general governments, insurance companies and patients

UPOlife solution will meaningfully improve the lives of the following groups:

• Bangladesh citizens with poor-low income, who cannot afford or access regular cardiologist visits.

• Bangladesh citizens with a higher risk of developing any heart-related disease. Our current pilot projects show a “large” portion of people living with heart conditions they are not aware of. Our solution gives them an affordable and effective way to check or monitor their heart health conditions. The patient himself, doctor or relatives can also easily access the generated report and trends of heart health, also see warnings of any future heart risks.

• People with pre-existing chronic conditions. Many chronic conditions have heart problems as comorbidity. As an example, diabetes type 2 patients, have 2-3 times higher risks of developing heart disease as a secondary condition. Doctors usually try to check them regularly, but it takes a lot of costs and time. Remote event-based or long term heart health check-up and monitoring would allow doctors to access the generated reports.

• Cardiologists - as a support decision tool, expanding the reach by the factor of 20x

This would also reduce human error, as 11% of ECG readings are mismanaged by doctors.

UPOlife solution is a perfect fit for the the huge deficit of cardiologists in Bangladesh. 

Our solution provides a cost-effective access to healthcare services, without spending time(for both patient and doctor), expenses on transportation and unneeded doctor visits.

In the infographic above you can see our solution in action:

• The patient gets recommended by doctor or decides himself to get access to one of our low-cost ECG devices (CE-marked) - he either buys, rents or gets access to them in public spaces.

• 60-second measurement is done (with pocket-size device) or doctor's recommended chronic patient long term (3-7 days) monitoring by a chargeable patch is done.

• In any case data goes to validated CE-marked medical level algorithms for any abnormality detection. Cloud analytics includes such sections as: Patented universal ECG score; myocardial damage analysis; syndromic ECG analysis; HRV analysis (stress, emotions, fatigue levels); minnesota codes for doctors; prognostic level analytics of heart health.

• Machine learning algorithms provide easy understandable dashboard in app or desktop. Visualization shows unique heart health forecast ( 2 months in advance); Forms individual benchmark for each patient during the 7 day period; provides personalized recommendations and enables lifestyle changes by encouraging physical and mental changes with gamification elements.

• Product user has also an option to connect with a professional nurse or cardiologist through a video call in the app itself.

Medical staff (Hospital) gets a patient database overview and sees who needs more attention and who is doing just fine.

The solution enables quality, effective heart health analysis access for Bangladesh citizens who can no longer afford to wait and pay for regular doctor visits.

The software can outline the smallest inconsistencies in your heart readings and analyse them, as well as analyse your stress, emotions, fatigue, and other vital factors. 

In-app Lifestyle change promoting section uses such tools as breathing exercises, guided meditation, calm music (binaural beats) moments, as well as physical activity promoting tools with gamification elements.

Combination of the above-mentioned features would allow such a solution to be part of the country's healthcare system. Providing with a heart health data archive for the Bangladesh citizens would help immensely to gather and access more specific data for each individual citizen and statistics in general. 

In the solution there is CE-marked hardware used, validated Cardiolyse algorithms, recommendation and suggested activity software, telemedicine videoconference solution.

We are shifting the current healthcare model from sick care to fast, reliable and affordable early diagnosis, enabling patient self-management and supporting behavioral changes.

Our innovation is combining existing technology in a new application and on top of that adding a patented machine learning scoring system for heart health.

Prediction algorithm function, as well as personal baseline calculation using machine learning algorithms for 7 days, is our unique selling point.

The current solutions are comparing health data against the average population and in the best cases general health norms in the age group are taken in mind, but that’s it. What we specifically are determined to tackle is the precision of analytics - our algorithm with its machine learning functions is calculating from specific personal baseline analytics, which are learning more about your specific health, the more measurements you submit.

The solution as a whole is user-friendly, time-saving, affordable and convenient to use any time, any place for all parties involved (patient, nurse, doctor, supervisor, municipality)

Our innovative approach also includes a new focus group for our solution: general urban citizen who is 40+ years old.

Till now we saw these people as a warriors in their maximum capability, but in reality many of them suffer internally and end up in hospital too late.

Our solution addresses the fair access to affordable and effective health service (heart health evaluation) challenge.

We have done a lot of research to test and find the most cost-effective hardware to address the “rising healthcare costs” issue. There are current solutions out there which are 10 times more expensive and they have the same quality. So we see that offering a much more affordable solution our target audience could be reached more effectively.

To make it an effective solution, we have validated the software component on 20 000 citizens in rural areas outside Europe. 27 people lives were saved, and the solution proved that offering people a cost-effective option for their heart health, they are very willing to take part.

This year we have an upcoming pilot project of 10 000 European citizens in urban areas who are not aware of the potential heart health issues they might have. 

Our colleague data from NHS England shows that there are 2,4% people living with AFib condition. In Bangladesh it makes around ‭3,952,800‬ who live with this condition and they are not aware of that. It makes them a ticking time bomb.

Citizens are willing to participate if validated and cost-effective solution is offered  with an educational information. And that exactly is our plan and the reason we cooperate with municipalities, local state hospitals, big pharma players, insurance companies, as all of us want to invest more in early diagnosis, not treating the outcomes.

As the end project is in pilot stage at this moment we only serve ourselves and friends for testing purposes - 20 people.

In one year, pilot project will be finished: 10 000 people + other clients and projects: another 10 000 people. In total: 20 000 people

In five years, using growth and scale strategies, we will meaningfully affect more than  4 000 000 people through our solution.

Technology concept is proven already. In 2019 our first pilot project / proof of concept in Latvia will be held with more than 10 000 urban citizens around the country. 

We have already included a strong Northern Europe telecommunication partner, World's top 10 Big Pharma player and World's most valuable company as a partner. They all are interested in life-changing healthcare solutions. 

Such partners would allow us to scale and replicate the project in much more bigger volumes and other locations where there is a need.

The concept of the solution is built so that it can be easily copied as a white-label platform with all hardware and technology in place to allow local municipalities, regions, countries implement such a solution by themselves.

Business-wise, we plan to partner with a franchisee company to allow private healthcare players to license the solution in their own country. This would also foster growth within the next 5 years.

These strategies and plans would allow us to directly impact the lives of 4 000 000 people within the next 5 years.

Current barriers for the next year: 

• financial support / grants for more pilot projects and proof of concepts in different regions;

• new technology adaption for involved parties (doctors, citizens, elderly citizens);

• User engagement;

• Government support policies for such solutions.

Current barriers for the next 5 years:

• financial support for new development and fast scaling opportunities;

• Legal issues for the US market entry (FDA clearance);

• Local market adaptation challenges (Africa, Asia)

1) financial support for pilot projects and proof of concepts: 

We make people and organisations aware of our solution. Solve is a great way to attract attention and support. We participate in competitions and attract strong partners and show the value for them as well to get them on board.

2) New technology adaption for involved parties:

We are part of educational system to inform and teach of such digital solutions that could be more effective that current systems. We get doctors and influencers on board. We make explanation videos and brochures.

3) User engagement:

Every new solution has this challenge nowadays. We add gamification element to our solution to engage users more. Give them value for taking care of their health - a potential cooperation potential with insurance companies and tokens on blockchain.

4) Government support policies:

We already work with local authorities and digital health cluster to foster the environment to be ready for digital health solutions. Local pilots and local hospital support is great tool to address this.

5) Financial support for new development and fast scaling:

Attract investors, financial and strategic partners. As soon as the first stages of financing and proof of concept are validates, this should no longer be an issue.

6) Legal issues for the US market entry:

Attract US based strategic partner / investor to address this challenge.

7) Local market adaptation challenges:

Attract local strategic partners, involve locale municipalities, use big pharma company network as a support tool.

We will launch a pilot project with trusted local partner (doctors association or Hospital chain) in order to offer accessible health care for all who are in need, throughout the region. We have also identified a local mobile operator as a top key partner for easy distribution of solution.

Market opportunity portrays itself in a way of saving both the patient and doctor the time during an appointed visit, transportation time and expenses and also the convenience of receiving quality, regular heart data since the measurements can be done in the comfort of the patient’s home!

3 (Full-time)
2 (Part-time)
5 contractors

Team members have been actively involved in a Digital & Disruptive Healthcare solution commercialization for the last 5 years.

10 - 15 years of experience in business development activities, government and municipality project execution, marketing and strategy implementation. 

We have gone through some accelerators: Berlin Startup Bootcamp (Germany) and Vertical Accelerator (Finland), gained huge knowledge and mentorship from Europe's Healthcare leaders.

Our team has advisors involved from medical and machine learning areas, who have gained their knowledge from 30 year research, like Multiple PhD: Ilya Chaikovsky from Ukraine.

We currently partner with the following organisations:

1. "Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital", Cardiology department - full support from best cardiologists in the country to run a pilot and implement such solution as ours;

2. Largest telecommunication operator in the country (LMT) - cooperation and technical support on a pilot project;

3. Microsoft - Data aggregation and technical support regarding healthcare data;

4. Novartis - Big pharma company support to address the patients with the right medication to solve their heart issues. Leveraging the representative network.

Our business model includes(but is not limited to) several options:

• B2G2C: We serve local governments and municipalities who then offer the end solution to their citizens. They buy the hardware needed and we provide the service (white-label or not) for a monthly subscription fee. In this case we provide full infrastructure and service, in return for huge cost-savings in healthcare budget. As an example, our colleagues in England saved 1.3 mln pounds in one pilot project saving 32 lives, just with an AFib screening.

• B2B2C: In partnership cases we attract strategic partner (healthcare service provider, local hospital, insurance company). They have the network and access to potential patients, we provide the hardware and software as a service with MRR (monthly recurring revenue). Partners get access to low-cost and effective solution (white label or not) which allows them to avoid costs of cardiac treatment and allows to invest in early detection, lifestyle changes, etc.

B2C: Our own projects where we address customers directly. In this case we rent or sell the hardware to our target audience and offer monthly subscription fee for a service (reports, analytics, trends, video consultations with doctors, gamification, etc).

We allow patients to save time and money on doctor visits in person, providing trusted solution they can rely on.

Doctors on the other hand get a support tool, avoid human errors, save time on data analytics, gets access to more patients in need.

At this stage we use internal capital and attract grants for pilot projects and proof of concept.

Our next step in commercial projects with municipalities, hospitals, big pharma companies to raise more awareness.

Selling / Renting a device to end customer (patient / doctor / hospital / health care provider) and charging a monthly subscription fee for our service is solution that would allow us to cover our expected expenses.

At that point for stable growth and scalability we will attract external investment from a strategic partner, as well as offer our white label platform as a franchise to implement.

Tiger IT foundation would help us to expand our international service reach and move up to the next level of another proof of our technology for a wider audience!

We see Solve as a stage to present our solution to the world, as well as a trampoline to faster growth!

You are the average between 5 peers you hang out with. We want to be part of Solve peers, the next innovators with disruptive life changing ideas.

To tackle and overcome our mentioned barriers, we see huge value in Solve 12-month program, mentorship and strategic advice from your network.

We already see ourselves pitching our solution live to hundreds of leaders and experts in the UN General Assembly Week.

This opportunity would allow to expand our network, attract strategic partners, as well as smart investors to join the team.

Bangladesh Cardiologist society

Bangladesh Mobile Operator 

Bangladesh Pharmacy Chain 

Largest hospital chain

Leading cardiac hospital

Ministry of health - Innovation department