Sensor data intermediary platform : Scanadu

Scanadu is a start-up that aims at providing a platform to patients and caregivers that will use your smartphone as the communications vehicle, connecting with the "Tricoder" optical medical sensor, (and possibly various other medical sensors) and transferring the data into a huge patient data database.  The business model is to sell that data (I assume anonymized) to the health insurance companies (and probably Pharma companies in search of outcomes data).  It is nowhere mentioned, but I guess the software will be free of charge to use, provided you accept the terms related to the use of the data.

In this video, Walter De Brouwer is presenting for the TEDxSanJose event the concept: TEDxSanJose Walter De Brouwer
They have the ambition to make a 3 $ optical sensor into a medical device equivalent to $ 100 K in an emergency room in a hospital.  If that can be achieved, it will be a true game changer.



As a concept, I believe this is extremely powerful and something that will happen.  Whether it will be Scanadu or another company, I don't dare to predict, but this concept will become reality.

Here is a video how the tools can be looked at by patients and caregivers : Scanadu website.
Here is a video where they pitch their idea to an investor community: Scanadu .  For the Belgian people who read this: who recognizes Vincent Van Quickenborne in the public?  Maybe other well known people I didn't notice?

And here are some promotional interviews.

Obviously, this is not going to happen all overnight, and I can imagine that competition will be there.  But the opportunity, both for a company realizing this vision as well as for our society, is huge.

Obviously, there will be barriers.  Getting devices approved as medical devices, especially if the accuracy is not the same as with traditional in-hospital diagnostics systems, may become a challenge.

This is a great example of a future intermediary platform, connecting the world of medical sensors to a big data data-warehouse and using that data to sell it to the health care payers and researchers.