MEDICA, the world’s largest trade fair which is dedicated to the market of medical technology and products, took place from 14 to 17 November. More than 81,000 guests visited the exhibition venue in Düsseldorf (Germany), where more than 5,000 exhibitors from all over the world presented their solutions for medical equipment, diagnostic, and electro-medical and laboratory equipment as well as hospital furniture.
HeadApp participated in this collective exhibition coordinated by the Trade & Investment Agency with its own stand. During the fair, HeadApp presented its case studies created for the medical sector and took the opportunity to meet with potential partners in order to create new projects and business opportunities.
MEDICA 2022 was an opportunity to engage with a relatively new sector for us. – comments Marco Zanella, Senior Business Manager of HeadApp – I specify “relatively” because HeadApp has been active in the sector since 2019 thanks to two ambitious projects. The first one, which was developed together with the IFO, aimed at helping cancer patients and their caregivers in home care. The second one, which was born within the Bio-Medico Campus with the collaboration of Cisco, has been developed to perform “hands-free” laboratory operations by exploiting smart glasses.
Being able to talk to operators of the field has allowed us to receive a lot of feedback about the goodness of both projects. Likewise, it has helped us confirm the idea that Eye4Care and its related use cases are not only of interest to Italy, but are also very topical and debated in the rest of Europe.
Digitization and sustainability
The digitization of healthcare has now become a priority in almost every country. The Covid pandemic has accelerated this process and highlighted how health IT can also play an important role in increasing sustainability and optimizing processes and workflows, with positive repercussions also on climate change. MEDICA itself identified sustainability as one of the key themes of the trade fair, dedicating ample space to it in the MEDICA Health IT Forum.
Difficulty in using new technological tools
The instruments that are used in the medical field are complex, high-performance tools which often require special attention in their use. Some practitioners have exposed and complained about the risks of having to concentrate too much on the tool, making it difficult to focus at the same time on the patient or the operations being performed.
The patient’s quality of life
A recurring topic in all the conversations was the need to improve the patient’s quality of life by also helping and supporting caregivers in this process, who are often little considered, but who play a fundamental role in caring for the sick.
The opportunities that Eye4Care offers
Eye4Care is a collaborative platform for wearable devices, such as smartphones or smart glasses, that allows users to follow coded/codified/encoded procedures and be supported remotely by expert staff.
Its features show that this product is perfectly in line with what proved to be the points of interest that emerged during MEDICA.
Sustainability of care
Among the advantages offered by Eye4Care, there is the possibility to assist patients remotely and, in doing so, to optimize available resources, both human and economic.
Being able to assist a patient remotely not only makes it possible to guarantee medical care to people who would otherwise have difficulty reaching the hospital, but it also allows expert staff to follow a greater number of patients in the same period of time.
Furthermore, the reduction in staff travel is an advantage for the environment.
Easy to use
Although Eye4Care encompasses many functions, it is easy to use and extremely intuitive, a feature that was greatly appreciated by the visitors at the exhibition. In fact, in a short time, they were able to test the platform and grasp the advantages described in the case studies. The immediacy of use and the possibility of using voice commands also makes it possible to focus on the patient and the operations to be performed.
Finally, the versatility of the product made it possible at the exhibition to hypothesize new scenarios of use and encouraged the exchange of ideas for new collaborations with European companies and universities.
The patient at the centre
For some people, reaching hospital facilities can represent a considerable expense in terms of both money and physical stress.
The possibility to perform certain medical procedures at home under the supervision of experienced personnel improves the quality of life of patients and the activities of caregivers, who feel more confident thanks to the support of experienced healthcare professionals.
In addition, the use of wearable devices allows a prompt and quick action in case of need.
Contact us for more information about Eye4Care or to develop new healthcare projects together.