When Mudit Dandwate, CEO and co-founder of Dozee, started his journey in the direction of constructing a medical-grade contactless affected person monitoring system, he did not know it will show to be so important, so quickly. Dozee permits hospitals to repeatedly monitor their affected person vitals remotely. According to the corporate it could actually convert every mattress right into a step-down ICU that may preserve monitor of their coronary heart charge, respiration charge, oxygen saturation, sleep levels, stress-recovery and extra. Dozee says it’s working with 25+ hospitals to assist them energy by means of the acute scarcity of ICU beds because the circumstances proceed to rise.
Dozee will also be utilized by people to remotely monitor their relations’ well being. The product, priced at Rs. 11,999, will be arrange with the sensor mat going below the mattress for monitoring of vitals. This knowledge will be accessed by means of the corporate’s app and shared with docs and caretakers.
Apart from hospitals, Dozee is being utilized by 4500+ customers at house to observe theirs in addition to their family members’ well being repeatedly. The firm claims that its AI powered early prediction algorithms have saved lives in 70+ circumstances, predicting early circumstances of coronary heart failure, tuberculosis, pneumonia and many others. The firm additionally claims to be powering 1,900+ COVID-19 beds in hospitals within the type of makeshift ICUs utilizing their expertise.
Expert opinion: Chief analyst at TechArc, Faisal Kawoosa says, “We can’t exponentially grow our healthcare facilities. That needs mammoth investments. With health tech companies, they can act as an efficiency layer helping to leverage more from existing infrastructure. This is very vital especially with the scenario changing after COVID-19. Today we need lot many ICU beds, oxygen beds, etc. Tomorrow, we might need to repurpose them for something else.”
We spoke to CEO and Co-Founder of Dozee, Mudit Dandwate to know a bit extra in regards to the firm’s journey, its distinctive product providing, the way it sailed by means of the pandemic and its future plans.
CEO and Co-Founder of Dozee, Mudit Dandwate
1. What have been you doing earlier than Dozee?
Prior to beginning Dozee, I labored as Vehicle Dynamics Expert at Altair Technologies, a world expertise firm. A mechanical engineer by schooling, I graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. I used to be all the time fascinated by race automobiles and journey sports activities. As a Chief Vehicle Dynamics Officer at IIT-Mumbai, I’ve designed, constructed and raced 4 full scale race automobiles, together with India’s first electrical race automobiles.
At Altair Engineering, I developed and marketed an AI powered autonomous race automotive driver that, as soon as hooked to automotive software program, drove the automotive autonomously utilizing sensors. This software program was later bought to vehicle majors like Porche, Chrysler, and Honda. I’ve additionally designed an MCC authorised cricket bat with 3D edges that reduces the vertical velocity of a cricket ball after hitting an edge, leaving 30 p.c much less time for wicket keeper or slip cordon to react – the cricket bat was licensed by Slazenger and continues to be in use.
I’ve additionally developed my very own Thought Controlled Bionic Arm on June 26, 2017 after shedding my arm to a crocodile assault in an try to save lots of my canine, which by accident jumped right into a lake in Bengaluru. The arm is absolutely purposeful and I’m frequently utilizing it in all chores for the final three years.
2. How did you give you the concept of Dozee? How did you and your co-founder meet?
Healthcare, which is a fundamental necessity in its present state, was very complicated. We noticed a chance of creating it easy, to make healthcare extra accessible. Currently in India, just one lakh beds are being repeatedly monitored and there are about 19 lakh beds that are depending on human intervention. We hope to bridge this hole within the coming years. I met my co-founder Gaurav once I was working at Altair Technologies.
The potential for at-home distant monitoring units in India is large. According to the newest knowledge, 500 million Indians are vulnerable to stroke, hypertension, age-related situations, cardiovascular illnesses and COPD, which will be managed by means of steady monitoring. There can also be a portion of the inhabitants that’s not instantly at-risk however is proactive in taking measures to make sure they don’t endure from well being issues sooner or later, additionally they develop into our clients and undertake the system early. The pandemic has additionally taught us to be extra observant of our vitals and take mandatory precautions. People now have develop into extra conscious and critical about taking good care of their well being. Our product has been productized after 5 years of deep analysis carried out in partnership with main hospitals, notably NIMHANS and Sri Jayadeva Institute.
3. When did Dozee develop into a actuality? What pushed you guys to lastly start your journey in the direction of constructing this startup
I’ve been working within the vehicle trade, having efficiently labored with high firms corresponding to Chrysler, Daimler in growing their driverless AI modules. I had equally developed India’s first electrical race automotive at my alma-mater IIT Bombay and had the joys of racing it in Silverstone Circuit, UK. I used to be returning again from Germany, after having efficiently delivered the driverless module to high world vehicle producers. This was a day earlier than my twenty fourth birthday. I believed in regards to the influence I’ve created in my lifetime and I realised whereas I’ve achieved good success in private life, there’s a lot to be accomplished for the society. This was with the backdrop of me all the time being concerned in regards to the well-being of my dad and mom. So I, together with my colleague Gaurav Parchani, zeroed down on healthcare because the sector to work on. And therefore, Dozee was born.
With Dozee, we wish to make healthcare accessible and very straightforward, by changing any mattress right into a full-fledged well being monitoring unit in lower than 2 minutes. This proactively screens your well being and provides you AI based mostly alerts to forestall any antagonistic well being occasions.
4. Could you elaborate what Dozee is and the way it helps throughout these unprecedented instances?
Dozee is India’s first contactless distant well being monitoring startup. Exclusively designed and manufactured in India, Dozee tracks key vitals of the human physique corresponding to coronary heart charge, respiration charge, oxygen saturation, sleep levels, stress-recovery and extra. The contactless sensor, positioned below the mattress, captures real-time physique vitals with out utilizing any exterior wires or touching the person’s physique. The sensor captures micro-vibrations produced by the physique each time the center pumps blood, throughout inhalation, exhalation, muscle twitches, tremors and physique actions. An AI-powered, Early Warning System then converts these indicators into biomarkers and makes use of the info to current an evaluation of the affected person’s well being by means of a smartphone app, for retail customers.
Dozee works on a expertise known as Ballistocardiography (BCG), a non-invasive methodology that tracks vibrations from each heartbeat, respiration and smallest of physique actions. Dozee has constructed a proprietary Advanced Health Intelligence System that extracts biomarkers and important parameters from the noisy vibration knowledge captured by the sensors. The AI system helps in figuring out well being deterioration by means of abnormalities throughout all important parameters Dozee measures. In many circumstances, the AI system has efficiently predicted early well being deterioration in situations starting from fever to coronary heart failure, even earlier than the affected person may see the signs.
Remote healthcare monitoring is a secure and environment friendly system to measure an individual’s vitals with none bodily contact. The course of is seamless, steady and very correct.
5. How have hospitals in India benefitted from Dozee?
Our system in its present state has been developed after 4 years of rigorous analysis by collaborating with the highest docs and hospitals in India. During onboarding, our workforce installs the units on the hospital beds and connects them to the system. They additionally prepare the docs and nurses in order that they’re outfitted to make use of the product. After this, it’s straightforward for the workers to start out monitoring the readings.
A nurse spends about 30-45 minutes per affected person a day monitoring their vitals. Each studying is finished utilizing a special system and information are manually maintained for the docs. These vitals are shared with docs remotely, normally after clicking pictures or proven at any time when docs go to the ward. The vitals assortment course of has not modified in many years, and nurses are sometimes overburdened as a consequence of this job. This whole course of will be automated utilizing steady vitals monitoring as one system can measure and file the affected person’s readings all through their hospital keep and is available for the docs to observe remotely. Since the method is steady, it’s extra credible as spot checking can generally be inaccurate. The nursing workers will also be safer as their bodily interactions with sufferers are restricted.
6. Did you expertise any turbulence through the making of this startup?
For us, the journey thus far has been each thrilling and difficult. Assembling an A-team, successful the belief of clinicians and making a seamless product that goes past boundaries, have been few of the challenges that we have now confronted.
In the healthcare house, it is very important be a model which docs can belief and advocate to sufferers. Being correct is a precondition to gaining belief as a healthcare model. In an AI-powered mannequin, accuracy will be achieved solely by means of rigorous assortment of knowledge which stays a problem within the Indian arrange the place there may be issue in capturing tagged medical knowledge in a well timed method. The different problem is making certain the system is all the time up and operating and bug-free. Dozee additionally faces two main dangers for the adoption – counterfeit merchandise and market adoption. We have intensive IP safety to mitigate this threat during which we have now already filed one patent and three extra are within the works. Also, we’re operating a big R&D price range in collaboration with premier institutes like Jayadeva institute of cardiology, Narayana Health, NIMHANS within the trade to take away the market barrier.
7. When did you get your first funding? Please provide particulars on who your buyers are
Dozee raised Rs. 12.5 crore in September final 12 months from Prime Venture Partners, YourNest Venture Capital and 3one4 Capital.
8. Could you share a few of the large milestones you have crossed since inception?
We take delight in the truth that Dozee is completely designed and manufactured in India. For customers, it is extremely easy to make use of and offers excessive constancy knowledge on the identical time. Most of the Dozee person base is above 80 years of age and the system is constructed particularly for the low useful resource and residential settings which requires no technical experience to set-up. The product offers efficient distant monitoring service that allows high-skill medical workers to take selections remotely.
Our answer helps healthcare service suppliers monitor affected person’s vitals remotely and repeatedly. Earlier, this complete course of was depending on nurses as they’re answerable for checking sufferers’ vitals all through the day. With COVID, it has develop into important to digitize this course of to safeguard the nurses and docs on the hospitals. Our product goals to remove this course of and automate it in order that when a affected person is admitted to the hospital, their vitals will be monitored all through the day, and that is supported by our AI based mostly early detection system that may warn the physician if there may be any threat to the affected person.
9. What has the previous 12 months been like? With hospitals at most capability and medical workers at high-risk publicity, Dozee should’ve been a saviour
The hospitals are overwhelmed with rising circumstances and hospital admissions coupled with scarcity of workers and beds. During the second wave, though there’s availability of safety gear corresponding to PPE kits and many others, unavailability of beds to observe vital sufferers is posing a critical risk. With the dearth of ICUs plaguing most states of the nation, Dozee helps flip beds into stepped-down and makeshift ICU beds thereby serving to a number of state governments. Using Dozee, hospitals and docs have been in a position to automate your complete vitals monitoring course of utilizing our contactless and distant monitoring mannequin.
Dozee has additionally arrange a Patient Monitoring Cell inside hospitals to make sure 24*7 on-ground assist and alert escalation. The Patient Monitoring Cell enabled by Dozee helps preserve monitor of all of the sufferers and alerts the docs and nurses on any escalation. The hospitals are overwhelmed by rising circumstances and hospital admissions coupled with scarcity of workers and beds. Dozee has stationed a devoted useful resource at these centres to assist the docs with prioritising alerts and monitor vital sufferers. This helps docs with the required knowledge on every affected person’s vitals on the proper time and enabling them to take any motion required.
Dozee can also be enhancing healthcare skilled’s lives considerably. It permits nurses and healthcare professionals to optimize their work as they not spend time checking vitals in each ward. The docs are additionally counting on the early warning system to make sure that vital circumstances are monitored and flagged off sooner than earlier. Our system has additionally changed many of the vitals assortment units that should be carried across the wards. COVID-19 primarily impacts the respiratory tract. Dozee is ready to detect a rise in respiration and tachycardia amongst many COVID sufferers. The system can also be intently monitoring diminished coronary heart charge variability, elevated sleep apnea and breathlessness.
Early identification of warning indicators in 30-40 p.c of the COVID-19 sufferers at our hospital who have been handled promptly in HDU with no need to shift them to ICU. Dozee’s AI helped us determine these sufferers in time and save their lives.
About 10-15 p.c of COVID-19 sufferers had moved to the vital stage and we needed to transfer them to ICU for additional remedy. The sufferers who have been handled in ICUs have been additionally detected fairly early and it was attainable to maneuver them to HDU sooner than anticipated.
The docs and nurses have develop into extra productive as they do not must manually monitor the vitals in every ward each day.
10. Could you assist give a way of how far Dozee has come? From when it started to the place it’s now
With the dearth of ICUs plaguing most states of the nation, Dozee helped flip beds into stepped-down and makeshift ICU beds throughout COVID thereby serving to a number of state governments. Dozee is being utilized by 4500+ customers at house to observe their in addition to their family members’ well being repeatedly. Our AI-powered early prediction algorithms have saved lives in 70+ circumstances, predicting early circumstances of coronary heart failure, tuberculosis, pneumonia and many others. We are additionally working with 25+ hospitals and powering 1900+ COVID-19 beds into step-down ICUs with our expertise. We have thus far monitored 7000+ COVID-19 sufferers in hospitals, resulting in 30+ sufferers getting well timed transferred to ICUs. Due to the rise in demand, the corporate surpassed the final monetary 12 months’s gross sales in only one quarter this 12 months.
We have seen probably the most quantity of gross sales in Bangalore and Nagpur. Government hospitals in Bangalore like Victoria Hospital and ESIC Hospital deployed 100 Dozee units to equip the hospitals with distant monitoring capabilities. Similarly, Kingsway Hospital, Government Medical College (GMC) and Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMC) in Nagpur additionally deployed 300 units to observe sufferers repeatedly and with out the necessity for any bodily contact from medical practitioners.
Because of all these efforts, Dozee has gained quite a few accolades, together with Indo-Sweden Innovation Challenge, Nasscom Emerge 50, Anjani Mashelkar Impact Award, ET Innovation Award and extra.
11. Is there any explicit incident that’s monumental in Dozee’s journey? Please share that incident with our readers.
Cardiac demise is basically preventable if sufferers with a coronary heart situation/ assault get remedy in time. Early detection, analysis and administration of those circumstances might help in bringing down the burden of coronary heart assaults. Continued and constant monitoring of vitals results in early detection of future situations. Dozee positioned below the mattress repeatedly collects knowledge whereas the affected person is in mattress and the system alerts healthcare professionals if charges change, indicating affected person deterioration. Patients with distant monitoring units have a likelihood of survival that’s practically two and a half instances higher than these with out it.
Timely detection with Dozee has confirmed life-saving in 70+ circumstances. This consists of an aged girl residing alone in Bengaluru. Her grandson, who had put Dozee below her mattress, acquired an alert of a falling heartbeat. On session with the physician, it was discovered that she wanted a cardiac pacemaker to set issues proper. Further delay would have confirmed catastrophic.
Dozee has comparable success tales in hospital settings, the place sufferers have been shifted to ICU well timed as a consequence of alerts raised.
12. Any recommendation for younger Indian entrepreneurs on the market? What is your administration mantra?
Entrepreneurship is a elaborate path however under no circumstances a straightforward one. In my opinion two of a very powerful traits of an entrepreneur are:
- Perseverance and talent to remain motivated in powerful instances – when nobody else believes. Having a robust motivation and motive helps.
- Ability to remain grounded in good instances. Having a robust motive past fame and cash helps.
13. How many staff does Dozee have? Are you hiring?
We have 90+ staff working full-time at present. And, sure, we’re actively hiring in all departments.
14. Where do you see Dozee within the subsequent 5 years?
We plan to proceed engaged on our AI in order that it turns into much more environment friendly in decoding the well being knowledge and figuring out sicknesses and illnesses sooner. We additionally plan to increase our suite of providers sooner or later to supply customers with a holistic platform for all their healthcare wants. We are particularly increasing the scope of our knowledge science to make sure Dozee can precisely predict particular problems, particularly in neurology, pulmonology and cardiology house.
On the hospital entrance, we’re seeing good traction this 12 months and we have now partnered with over 30 hospitals already. We are planning to scale throughout the nation and have our units at many extra wards. Currently in India, just one lakh beds are being repeatedly monitored and there are about 19 lakh beds that are depending on human intervention. We hope to bridge this hole within the coming years.
We are additionally focusing on Tier II cities because the physician to affected person ratio is extraordinarily skewered right here and having our system in such areas will be certain that hospitals run effectively by automating the vitals monitoring course of. We have tied up with Indira Gandhi Government Medical College & Hospital and Government Medical College in Nagpur just lately the place 250 of our units have been deployed. We hope to accomplice with extra establishments in smaller cities.
