Irish innovators are offering IT solutions to Canada

TORONTO – Eight innovative companies from Ireland, all specializing in healthcare IT, participated in a “Dragon’s Den” style event in downtown Toronto earlier this month. The three-person panel that critiqued the visiting companies was comprised of Sorin Manta, executive director, digital operations at Toronto’s University Health Network; Matthew Collingridge, general manager, digital & solutions at GE Healthcare; and Julia Zarb, program director, Master’s of Health Informatics, University of Toronto.

Neil Cooney (pictured), the Canada Country Manager for Enterprise Ireland, noted that Ireland has become a major hub for multinational medtech companies in Europe and is now the second biggest exporter of medical products in the European Union. Ireland is also developing medical expertise and creating spin-off companies.

For its part, Enterprise Ireland invests in over 200 start-ups each year, and helps them grow and develop sales worldwide.

The “Dragons” were impressed with the solutions devised by the Irish companies, and believed they could help solve problems in the Canadian healthcare system with some unique technologies. In some instances, they could also provide a competitive alternative in a marketplace that is dominated by just a few North American players.

Here is a summary of the solutions, with website information:

CliniShift is a custom software solution that works as a communication platform connecting clinical staff with hospital managers who manage rosters/ off duty’s. The sole purpose of CliniShift is to reduce overreliance on agency staff, making significant cost savings along with a better utilisation of the workforce. Website: https://www.clinishift.com/

MedModus provides comprehensive on-premise and cloud based BI solutions to hospitals and other healthcare organisations. The fCast Waiting List Decision Support System provides hospitals with detailed capacity insights and a thorough understanding of service demand, activity and effectiveness. Website: www.medmodus.com

RelateCare is a healthcare contact centre consultancy and outsourcing organization that is fast-becoming a global leader in the delivery of patient access and patient engagement solutions. The company provides technical expertise in healthcare contact centre operations and clinical expertise in the design and implementation of telehealth and clinical programs. Website: www.relatecare.com

Salaso’s care management platform and mobile apps help patients convert their prescribed exercise routines into daily habits. The platform hosts over 2,000 evidence-based videos combined with clinically proven protocols to meet the needs of patients across multiple therapeutic areas. Underpinned by eLearning and behavioural change principles, Salaso empowers and educates patients in self-care and self-management. Website: www.salaso.com

swiftQueue is a cloud-based SaaS platform that allows clinics to communicate available appointments for patients, and improve communication flow while delivering operational excellence. The platform applies to many Healthcare Clinic scenarios, enabling new ways for healthcare clinics to better manage their availability and patient specific information through improved patient engagement. Website: www.swiftqueue.com

Innerstrength Health provides unique cloud-based applications which enable them to provide personalised lifestyle interventions for each patient. For the first time, health professionals can now easily deliver lifestyle interventions using an easy to use web-based application. The company’s primary product ‘Tickerfit’ is focused on cardiac rehabilitation, while ‘Hacka Health’ has recently been deployed to support Cystic Fibrosis patients. Website: www.tickerfit.com

The T-Pro solution is a versatile digital dictation, speech recognition and clinical correspondence platform, designed to replace tape and paper-based systems used in medical dictation, transcription, and transmission. Users are provided with an intuitive, easy to use interface enabling them to easily record, transcribe, review, sign off and manage workloads, as well as allowing them to leverage additional options such as speech recognition, outsourced transcription, and smartphone-based dictation. Website: www.tpro.io

Vitro is an Electronic Patient Chart that replicates current paper documents and their clinical workflow, by either replacing or integrating with existing systems to provide a complete electronic medical record. Vitro works by taking images of existing clinical and administrative paper documents, overlaying them with data fields, and adding logic for clinical decision support. Once created, it is simply published as an electronic App, ready to start capturing data digitally and viewable in the patient’s electronic chart. Website: www.vitrosoftware.com

For further information on any of these companies, please contact marianna.costello@enterprise-ireland.com.