INNOVATIONS
Making Healthcare More Intelligent
Innovations & Impacts
The rapidly ageing local population in Hong Kong leads to snowballing demand for medical care and enduring work force shortage in hospitals. Prevention is better than cure - preventing the preventable relieves suffering for patients and their families as well as pressure on the healthcare system. This rings particularly true when most chronic diseases in the elderly are indeed avertible. Given a self-administrable test and appropriate follow-up advice, we can all play a proactive part in monitoring our health conditions.
Deploying his research expertise in digital innovation in chronic disease management and big data applications in the healthcare industry, Professor Kelvin Kam-fai TSOI of the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care started up DeepHealth Limited in 2019 as an extension of his Knowledge Transfer Project Fund (KPF) project. As a social enterprise, DeepHealth offers a low-cost and innovation healthcare management model to the community. The team has developed software solutions, particularly, two mobile applications - “ScreenMat” (a digital screening platform that identifies several symptoms for dementia, including memory, orientation, attention, calculation, comprehension and abstraction) and “HealthCap” (a mobile blood pressure management platform for blood pressure data recording and analysis).
Riding on the advancement of smartphones and wearable gadgets, DeepHealth is empowering people to make sense of their digital health data, while taking proactive actions and making lifestyle changes in maintaining their health. The team also conducted community health talks to old people, social workers and health caretakers, contacting over 1,000 individuals. DeepHealth is a facilitator of transforming the traditional disease curing model into a proactive prevention approach in promoting public health.
From Research to Market
-
RESEARCH
-
IP & LICENSING
-
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
-
SOCIAL IMPACT & PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Specialized in Digital Health, Professor TSOI focuses his research on digital innovation in chronic disease management, including mobile and telecare application for hypertension management, technological implementation and social engagement for cognitive screening, artificial intelligent application on electronic health records.
For the invention of “dementia screening in 30 seconds with 1 simple drawing,” Professor TSOI was awarded Bronze Medal in the International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva 2021. The invention is a software component that can analyse real-time drawing behaviour change objectively in a clinically validated model which indicates corresponding brain activities to screen for dementia when a user draws a simple figure. It is a user-friendly and cost-effective dementia screening platform, where the presence of healthcare professionals is not necessary to conduct the screening test.
Supported by the Sustainable Knowledge Transfer Project Fund (S-KPF), DeepHealth was established in 2008 as one of the leading health data analytics companies with app-based platform development in Hong Kong for delivering innovative healthcare solutions. The social enterprise is dedicated to improving social health issues through health data analytics, technology deployment to improve experience of patients, clinical practitioners and collaborating with both local and global academic research teams in Medicines and Engineering who share the same visions. The company’s major clients include the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Kwai Tsing Safe Community and Healthy City Association, NGOs, GOPCs under Hospital Authority (pilot trial). The company also won the Champion in AIA LifeHack 2018.
Professor TSOI received two KPFs in 2018 and 2020 respectively for his projects “Enhance Frontline Social Workers and Caregivers’ Knowledge in Dementia Screening” and “Self-management Blood Pressure for Happier Digital Life.” The former project aimed to develop a cost-effective digital dementia screening platform to be used with minimum supervision and even self-administered for dementia screening, bringing benefits to more than 300 elderly, 250 caregivers and interested public members. For the latter, the team developed a mobile app to capture blood pressure records directly from any model of blood pressure device with the smart phone camera. The project has reached out over 4,000 public members aged 18 or above, 700 participants for hidden pre-hypertensive screening and 60 trainers including students, social workers and retired elderly volunteers.
