A few months ago, I had a BRAVO study done for acid reflux issue. Basically, a capsule with wireless transmitter is attached to esophagus wall. You carry around a bulky wireless receiver with antenna sticking out that records pH readings for 48 hours. You also record when you are lying down, eating and encounter acid reflux episodes on a piece of paper. After 48 hours, you need to take receiver and paper with recorded information back to the clinic so that they can retrieve the data from recorder.
Pain points:
1. A Bulky receiver that patient need to carry around or keep within couple of feet of your body. (inconvenience).
2. Patient need to remember to record on a paper when you are lying down and various other information.
3. Patient need to take the receiver back to clinic.
4. Clinic need to enter the information listed on paper and download data from receiver and upload to an analysis system.
5. If receiver is lost, patient is charged $3,000 to $5,000 and clinic need to buy another receiver.
In this age of smartphones with gyros and apps, I thought these pain points can be easily solved by creating a Smartphone App and turning smartphone into receiver from wireless capsule in esophagus. Smartphone can be attached to the chest to detect when a patient lies down. Patient can manually select options in apps for various information that need to be captured. After 48 hours, smartphone automatically sends captured information and data to a central server over internet.
Benefits:
1. Everyone has smartphone, no need for clinic to provide a bulky receiver that need to be returned to clinic after 48 hours and deal with lost receivers.
2. Patient doesn't need to go back to clinic just to return receiver and completed forms (Travel time and cost).
3. Clinic doesn't need to perform data entry and upload information to a system (Expensive medical labor).
Challenges:
1. Potentially limited market. But I am sure there are a few other similar medical monitoring procedures to which this solution could be extended (small market).
2. Potential FDA approval and clinical trials (expensive and long time to market). Depending on wireless protocol used between capsule and receiver, may need to redesign the capsule (much larger hurdle for a new startup instead of existing maker to modify).
3. Bringing together people with medical imaging domain knowledge and mobile OS App developers.
Why I am not pursuing this idea myself?
I thought about pursuing this idea for a short while as I spent couple of years consulting in medical imaging IT. But thought of putting together a qualified team and raising financing stopped me in the tracks. I prefer ideas that I can bootstrap (result of previous scars raising OPM). Most of my medical imaging contacts are on East coast of Canada and I am now on West coast of US so difficult to put together a good team with people I know. No experience with Mobile. Already involved with another idea in a totally different space.
Hopefully, sharing this idea helps someone else.