NeoCloud

An estimated 2.3 million neonatal deaths occurred globally in 2021. Regionally, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounted for 47.2% of those deaths. This indicates that a child born in SSA is 15 times more likely to die than a child born in Europe or North America. Sadly, most of these deaths are a result of avoidable causes. Approximately 75% of newborn deaths could be prevented if these patients were able to access timely medical care from trained health workers.

Amidst the challenges of neonatal mortality in SSA, Kenya has seen a gradual decline in its neonatal mortality rate over the past 30 years, moving from 27 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1991 to 18 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2021. This is partly due to the rise of facility-based deliveries and the effectiveness of antenatal care services.Despite the positive trend, health facilities in Kenya frequently grapple with a lack of sufficient resources to provide essential neonatal care , coupled with human resource challenges
that continue to put high acuity newborns at significant risk of deterioration and subsequent mortality. 

A critical gap in these facilities is the limited availability of continuous vitals data to support effective resource allocation and healthcare delivery. Continuous vital signs monitoring is crucial for early detection of newborns in distress, allowing healthcare workers to swiftly intervene and administer necessary interventions. Measurement of vital signs is an important component of many best practice neonatal care procedures, such as those outlined in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Recommendations on Newborn Health , and in the Kenya Ministry of Health, Clinical management and Referral Guidelines. Increasing coverage of optimal supportive care, including effective monitoring of vital signs in Newborn Care Units (NBCU) can help prevent an estimated 41-72% of neonatal deaths worldwide. 

The lack of a platform to visualize data trends prevents health facilities from gaining valuable insights into their patient population which affects resource allocation and healthcare delivery.

Neopenda’s neoCloud is a cloud-based platform that enables aggregation and visualization of data collected from Neopenda’s neoGuard vital signs monitor devices. NeoCloud will enable hospitals as well as other healthcare and
government entities to gain valuable insight into its patient populations, including the number of patients served, their conditions, outcomes, and demographic information. The ability to draw trends in this data will better equip healthcare entities to allocate resources, provide care, and cater to the specific needs of their patients. We have found that developing countries have lagged in EMR adoption due to organizational, financial and infrastructural factors – Neopenda’s ability to overcome these issues and streamline processes will be paramount.

The image below shows the proposed dashboard for neoCloud.

Our solution serves health facilities in low and middle income countries. 

Neopenda's neoGuard has been designed to fulfill the unmet need of vital sign monitoring in critically ill newborns aged 0-28days in LMICs. The 0-28 day age group is the primary focus of this technology owing to their vulnerability and high risk for severe morbidity and mortality. Nurses and clinicians caring for newborns also benefit from receiving access to adequate and sustainable equipment that enhance their efficiency and enable them to deliver the most appropriate care to their patients 

Neopenda's neoCloud provides the additional benefit to health facilities by ensuring that resources are procured and allocated in a timely manner to patients who need it most. Also, ensuring that nurses and clinicians are more efficient in their delivery of care.

As a medical device company, Neopenda's key area of expertise is creating needs-based health technology for high-growth emerging markets. The organization is led by co-founders Sona Shah(CEO) and Teresa Cauvel (CTO) - two mission-driven, globally oriented engineers who met in graduate school at Columbia University, where they developed the initial idea of Neopenda in a biomedical design course. 

Neopenda is a global organization with 60% of full time staff located in Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana). Collectively, we have relevant expertise in a number of areas including product design and development, biomedical engineering, project management, regulatory and quality systems, supply chain, business strategy, customer support, biostatistics, clinical research, and monitoring and evaluation. 

In addition to hiring local talent for out internal team, we also continue to engage and work with a number of external stakeholders, including government partners, non-profit and multilateral institutions, local distributors and academic researchers to better understand the nuances of the health systems we seek to serve. Over the last 7 years, we have firmly established networks and connections with health facilities and research organizations in Kenya, Zambia and Nigeria. We regularly conduct feasibility and user experience studies to ensure that our technology is in line with the needs of the communities we work in. 

NeoCloud has not raised any investment yet. We are in the process of commercializing it based on the results from the Voice of Customer research conducted. 

We are applying to MIT Solve for three main reasons:

1. To leverage the MIT Solve network to improve our solution and gain valuable insights on how to have maximum impact with a cloud based software in low and middle income countries.

2. To obtain technical guidance and feedback on our solution

3. To raise funds to implement NeoCloud in more health facilities

NeoCloud’s competitive advantage stems from its ability to provide value to several different customer bases. The natural application of neoCloud is to enable hospital administrators with aggregated insights that answer questions
they would previously be unable to resolve, but the information that neoCloud collects has proven relevant to NGOs, pharmaceutical companies, and beyond. Further, the opportunity to partner with Africa-focused EMR systems creates another niche for neoCloud to add value without the need to redefine existing processes.Other value propositions for neoCloud are outlined below:

The first being that it is responsive to the needs of existing neoGuard customers. neoCloud’s differentiation stems from its natural build upon the neoGuard device and serves as a proactive response to the questions Neopenda’s existing customers are seeking to answer about their patients.

Secondly, it has a broader application beyond hospitals. NeoCloud lays the foundation for broader insights across hospitals, regions and beyond that would be invaluable to NGOs, government organizations, research institutions, and pharmaceutical companies. 

Thirdly, neoCloud is highly customizable by application. neoCloud's dashboards are dynamic and designed to be regularly used to draw insights across different time periods, patient subsets, etc. 

NeoCloud is affordable. Enterprise-wide solutions can be extremely costly and typically upfront. On the other hand, neoCloud’s pricing allows resource-constrained environments to save money thanks to automation of tasks, early prevention, and a historical view of patients’ health.

Our theory of change is as follows:

1. Input: NeoGuard and neoCloud are adopted by health facilities and health staff are trained to use it 

2. Direct Output: Critically ill newborns are monitored with the neoGuard technology; vital sign data is measured and recorded in the neoCloud software 

3. Short Term Outcome: Health facilities administrators generate valuable insights on the health outcomes of patients 

4. Intermediate Outcome: Health facilities administrators optimize health care delivery and resource allocation to the different wards. 

5. Long term outcome: Improved newborn mortality, improved health care delivery 

Our impact goals are:

a. Increase access to an affordable vital signs monitoring solution and digitalized data archive in at least 50 health facilities across 5 countries. 

b. Complete training of over 200 health staff to use the neoGuard technology and increase health staff satisfaction with regard to availability of effective tools to perform their tasks and aid in clinical decision making. 

This will be achieved through broadening our customer outreach efforts and performing bi-annual feedback surveys for new and existing users of the neoGuard and neoCloud. Responding promptly to customer feedback or complaints will be key, and we have already put in place a robust customer complaint handling process. 

c. Support provision of clinical care to over 1500 patients observed with the neoGuard vital signs monitor.

NeoGuard is a 4-in-1 biometric monitoring device designed specifically for newborns in resource-constrained health facilities. The affordable system helps over-burned healthcare workers better manage their patients and improves speed of action for newborns in distress so that they have the best chance to receive the care they need to survive and thrive. Ulimately, it contributes to reducing preventable newborn mortality and morbidity. 

The patented neoGuard vital signs monitor uses reflectance pulse oximetry and temperature sensors to continuously measure 4 key vital signs: pulse rate(PR), respiration rate (RR), blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), and tempertature. 

The neoGuard technology is manufactured, packaged and shipped from CPI Penang, a contract manufacturer in Malaysia. 

Data from the neoGuard device is inputted into the neoCloud software, which is a cloud based software.

11 full-time staff and 3 contractors 

Neopenda has been working on NeoCloud for the past 2 years

Neopenda has an incredibly diverse team consisting of 60% female and 40% male. The same gender representation applies across our senior management positions. More than 70% of our team are people of color who identify as Black, Hispanic or Asian. We strive to foster an equitable environment and encourage employees to report any gaps and offer suggestions as to how we can do better as a company. 

We have a hiring policy and employee handbook that emphasizes inclusivity and protection against discrimination on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation and identity, or disability.