Atlanta-based Twiage, a Blueprint Health company that enables seamless EMS to ED care transitions using mobile technology has been selected by Cleveland Clinic Innovations as the winner of its prestigious 3rd New Ventures Healthcare Challenge at the 2015 Medical Innovation Summit on Monday.
Founded in 2013, Twiage is a comprehensive, interoperable prehospital communication system that delivers real-time situational awareness of incoming ambulances to busy Emergency Departments. Paramedics and EMTs can use Twiage’s HIPAA-compliant smartphone app to capture stroke symptoms in video, EKGs for heart attacks, trauma scenes through photos, and record digital voice memos. By providing live patient data and GPS-tracked ETA for all incoming ambulances, Twiage helps hospitals accelerate treatment for strokes, heart attacks, and other critical emergencies, while improving performance measures, patient outcomes, and reducing costs.
Today, Cleveland Clinic Innovations’ New Ventures Healthcare Challenge hosted four healthcare technology finalists, who present their groundbreaking technologies live before a judging panel of venture capital investors, technology and clinical experts, as well as a general audience of healthcare industry professionals. In the winning pitch, Dr. YiDing Yu, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Twiage described how a first responder can use Twiage to record video of stroke symptoms which can be immediately relayed to on-call neurologists or tele-stroke programs. “By advancing the prehospital timeline, Twiage allows hospitals to shave crucial minutes off hospital metrics, such as door-to-CT scanner and door-totPA times for stroke.”
The other finalists were ExplORer, Noninvasix, and Varsa Health. Started in 2015 and now in its third year, Cleveland Clinic Innovations’ New Ventures Healthcare Challenge is a signature event at the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit, one of the nation’s premiere conferences on healthcare innovation. This year’s Medical Innovation Summit is focused on Neuroscience and the overall state of healthcare innovation, which attracted a record breaking of approximately 2,000 attendees from 32 different states and 18 countries.
Nineteen million Americans will take an ambulance to Emergency Departments, according to the CDC. The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association have made accelerating stroke treatment a major priority with the “Get with the Guidelines: Stroke” initiative. Across the country, only 3-8% of all stroke patients are treated with tPA, the clot-busting drug capable of reversing stroke symptoms. Because the drug can only be given in the first 3-4.5 hours, the number one reason for lack of treatment is delay in diagnosis and treatment. EMS first responders and prepared Emergency Departments are keys to solve this problem.
For thirteen years, Cleveland Clinic Innovations has been searching the globe for the next early stage health information technologies that will disrupt the market and streamline the delivery of better care. It looks for ideas that are imaginative, innovative and inspiring. As the winner of the Challenge, Twiage will receive free consultations from commercialization experts at Cleveland Clinic Innovations and its Innovation Advisory Board, made up of some of the most well-known industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors in healthcare.
