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Background

Vanilla Blush is a Glasgow-based medical lingerie business founded by a former nurse, Nicola Dames. The business specialises in garments for people living with a colostomy, ileostomy or a urostomy, which are all categorised as stomas. Approximately 102,000 individuals live with an excretory stoma in the UK, with around 21,000 individuals undergoing stoma-forming surgery each year. 

Having a stoma herself, Nicola embarked on her first business venture to develop a new line of underwear for females and males who have suffered from similar conditions. The Vanilla Blush unique underwear is carefully designed with those individuals in mind and comes in a range of colours and sizes with a built-in pouch to conceal the bag.

Listed as a Class 1 Medical Device, the Vanilla Blush garments are supplied to the NHS throughout the UK and are also exported to 18 other countries around the world.

Challenge

A bowel stoma is an artificial opening on the surface of the abdomen that has been surgically created in order to divert the flow of enteric or faecal matter into an external bag. The most common underlying conditions that may require the formation of a bowel stoma include colorectal cancer, diverticular disease, incontinence and inflammatory bowel disease. One of the most frequent complications following stoma creation is parastomal hernia which occurs when an internal part of the body pushes through a weakness in the muscle or surrounding tissue wall. The UK Association of Stoma Care Nurses recommends ‘belts/underwear’ ‘to aid prevention of hernias and offer abdominal muscle support.

Nicola Dames was keen to better understand the individual’s experiences of living with a stoma and usage of support garments. To do so, she appointed a Stoma Care Specialist Nurse who was visiting the nurses responsible for these groups of patients to get an understanding of what advice they give around two key issues:

Following a referral from Scottish Enterprise, Nicola got in touch with Interface to seek help in finding an academic partner to investigate the following:

Solution

Working with Ruth Oliver at Interface, Vanilla Blush was successfully matched with the right academic partner at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) to complete the first study, exploring people’s experiences of support garments following bowel stoma formation.

The Department of Nursing at UHI has a thriving health and well-being research group that includes nurses, midwives and behavioural scientists. The current research programme in the Department of Nursing is about physical activity in people who have a stoma. This programme is led by Dr Gill Hubbard, an accomplished researcher, behavioural scientist and Director of Research in the Department of Nursing at UHI.

Dr Hubbard has excellent research partnerships with the Colostomy Association and Ileostomy and Internal Pouch Support Group, as well as Bowel and Cancer Research. She also has a thriving Stoma Patient Advisory Group. Dr Hubbard’s essential expertise enabled Vanilla Blush to address the gaps in their evidence about support garments during physical activity, to reduce the risk of hernia in people who have a bowel stoma. 

Business Benefits

As a concept, brand and company, Vanilla Blush embodies both the patient’s perspective and academic enterprise, which is required for an ethically-based efficient business offering an economically beneficial service to the NHS.

Academic Benefits 

The key findings from this project resulted in multiple academic manuscripts and have been presented at various industry-leading conferences throughout the UK and Europe. The full publication is available here.

Background

Brian McCormack is a former coal miner turned inventor on a mission to improve ­cancer detection rates while ­helping the environment at the same time.

His company, McCormack Innovation Ltd, was initially set up to address the low return rates of bowel or colorectal cancer screening programmes worldwide where most return or compliance rates around a disappointing 50%. Harnessing soluble material as a solution and working in partnership with Smartsolve Industries based in Ohio, USA, the business has identified an ideal material to be used in stool sample collection that can then be harmlessly flushed away.

From their further research with similar “soluble” material, the idea to create an easily removed wound dressing came about.  McCormack Innovation has patented an application for the FlushAway™ “soluble” wounds dressing. Using water dispersible material, these dressings can be used for burns units and patients with other ultrasensitive skin conditions like Epidermolysis Bullosa.

Challenge

There are presently many types of wound dressings on the market, even those described for use on sensitive skin. However, none of the current range of products include a wound dressing that is secure enough to complete the task yet can easily and painlessly be removed by showering or spraying with water. The FlushAway™ wound dressing addresses both these needs.

The business was looking to engage with academia to have the base material dermatologically tested and developed accordingly for market entry.

Solution

After being referred by Business Gateway in Fife, Interface was able to match the company with Professor Robert Keatch and Dr Jan Vorstius at the University of Dundee to undergo the following:

Specialist facilities at the University, along with access to clinicians and medical staff, were used for testing the biomaterials for use in the wound dressing.

In a product report, Professor Keatch and Dr Vorstius said: “All materials under test performed well, keeping their integrity and structure until exposed to water.

“The proposal to use this material as a secondary wound dressing would therefore be viable, providing the outer dressing can be kept dry until removal is required.

“This method would certainly reduce trauma inflicted during bandage removal and retain all the features of the conventional cotton and crepe bandages used.”

Benefits

The technical results from this project should help inform the further optimisation of the material for use in a number of medical applications.  When ready for production, these innovative products will transform the market and bring about significant clinical improvements and patent relief at the point of care. 

The company has been nominated for a large number of innovation awards, both nationally and internationally, and has been approached by some large biomedical companies interested in licensing the technology. 

Background

Re-Tek, who provide refurbishment and resale of used IT equipment, was established in 1996 and is based in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire. The business has 45 employees in Scotland as well as partners in Europe, America and Asia.  Operating on an ‘incentivised return’ business model, they are leaders in the IT disposal industry offering re-use as a secure, environmentally sustainable method of asset retirement.  In 2018, Re-Tek extended the life of 200,000 used technology items for business and the consumer, therefore preventing the need for these items to be inefficiently or needlessly recycled or landfilled.

The company sources most of its equipment from medium to large-sized businesses and public sector organisations, and they aim to re-market as much of the material received as possible. Approximately 80% of all equipment received is refurbished and re-marketed.  Only equipment which is non-functional or has no market value goes to conventional IT recycling partners. Re-Tek’s facility has LED lighting throughout, a Biomass Boiler and a 62 Solar Panel Array, providing approximately 80% of their energy needs from renewable sources. They take sustainability and corporate responsibility seriously and work closely with WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) and Zero Waste Scotland.

Challenge

The project partners, Re-Tek and Enscape, were keen to find a partner in academia, specifically individuals or teams with expertise in recycling/reclamation of rare earth minerals and in precious metals recovery from electronic waste. This was to partner in a bid for a €166k tender across four countries in the EU, released by EU Life/WRAP UK, which was designed to identify collection models in phase one, and recovery processes in phase two for Critical Raw Materials (CRMs).

Whilst Re-Tek were confident they could deliver Phase 1 (identifying collection models), they needed to identify a project partner to help them deliver Phase 2 (Recovery Phase), as the extraction process would be quite specialised given the recovery materials. 

Solution

The Scottish Institute for Remanufacture referred Re-Tek on to Interface who, after putting out an expertise search to various universities within Scotland, was able to connect them with Professor Andrew S Hursthouse from the School of Computing, Engineering & Physical Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS).

Re-Tek and UWS were successful in their tender for WRAP and three years on presented the results of their collaboration at The Royal Society in London. The partners are still working together to develop their ideas and are currently involved in a Horizon 2020 two-stage bid. This has also involved Re-Tek and partners networking across the EU through a recent COST Action project co-chaired by Prof Hursthouse.

Benefits

The company received grant funding for approximately two years to support collection models underpinned by Circular Economy initiatives. This will increase the diversion of redundant IT products from traditional recycling and landfill and enhance opportunities for further employment and profitability, whilst income sharing with Social Enterprise partners.

Re-Tek recently won the Sustainability award, sponsored by The Scottish Institute for Remanufacture, at the CeeD Awards 2019.

Follow-on Activity

Whilst Re-Tek reuses approximately 80% of ICT equipment received, the remaining goods are sent to their Recycling Department for preparation before being sent to a downstream recycling partner for further treatment.

Currently, they only remove certain commodities from ICT equipment, e.g. memory, PCBs, hard drives, however they believed that there was a great opportunity to increase their revenues by fully disassembling equipment and segregating by commodity, e.g., aluminum, cables, plastics, etc., which would be advantageous to the recycling partner and should increase the rebate received.

A cost-benefit analysis was required, calculating the cost of disassembling various products and the calculation of the funds received from the recycling partner as a result of the separation. The company was also looking for suggestions for a re-design of the production space to ensure sufficient space was allocated to the disassembly functions.

Interface put out another expertise search to the universities looking for a collaborative partner for this project with the result that the company was allocated a student from the University of Strathclyde’s MSc Business Analysis and Consulting programme. The student provided business insights about the project.

“Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”  Dr James Levine, Director of the Mayo Clinic, Arizona State University

Company Background
Each year, significant numbers of workers suffer ill health as a result of poor ergonomics and unhealthy lifestyles at work. This has an impact on quality of life and results in tens of millions of lost sick days. With awareness growing of the adverse effects of sedentary, desk-bound, computer-centric work lifestyles, Welbot was founded in Edinburgh in 2017 with a primary goal of helping people take control of their wellbeing in the workplace by instigating positive behavioural modification through the use of smart, appropriate technologies.
 
The Welbot team comprises of Mykay Kamara (CEO), Sam Deere (CTO) and Pete Burns (CDO) who are a close-knit group of commercial, technology and marketing minds working alongside Creative Directors Ian Greenhill and Jordan Laird, with the business being chaired by Ian Smith ex-MD of Oracle UK.
 
Welbot is a cross-platform, digital intervention and productivity platform, tailored to each user, that helps employees stay physically and mentally well in the workplace by learning and adapting to the actions that they take. The wellness management software encourages activities such as stretching, screen breaks, nutrition, mindfulness, hydration, micro exercises and simple, rewarding brain training games and is designed and engineered for both individual and large-scale enterprise use.

Challenge 
The company initially wanted to collaborate with a university to understand how they could extract knowledge and insights from data and machine learning, especially around autonomous, self-teaching systems that can analyse data and provide insights to human behaviour. The aim of this project was to 1. investigate the use of predictive models of user response to screen-based notifications and prompts and 2. provide a path for future enhancement of the underlying Welbot AI framework.

Solution
Interface connected the team with the Department of Computing and Information Science at the University of Strathclyde, where they were successfully awarded a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher to address the company’s challenge and to develop a proof of concept prototype to incorporate the findings into the application roadmap.

Follow-on Activity 
In addition, Interface saw the opportunity to provide additional support to the company by partnering them with marketing and business students at both the University of Strathclyde and the University of Edinburgh. Interface drew up a project outline and introduced the team to the academic supervisors at both universities. The projects were approved and the company now has a student team from Marketing at the University of Strathclyde researching, analysing and making recommendations to support their business strategy around corporate wellbeing programmes in the UK, as well as an Msc student from the University of Edinburgh, doing a company sponsored dissertation on evaluating the uptake and Return On Investment of wellbeing programmes.
 
Offering further support to the company, Interface issued another search across the universities to support their requirement of cross-disciplinary academic expertise in exercise physiology and computer science. They were ultimately partnered again with the University of Strathclyde who had the best fit to continue the project. Strathclyde were successfully awarded a Follow-On Innovation Voucher and they have drawn upon academic expertise from both the School of Psychological Sciences and Health (PSH) and Computer and Information Sciences (CIS).  This project will address analytics of user behavioural data and the psychological effects of prolonged sedentary behaviour on the body.
 
Welbot are also working with experts in behavioural sciences within the University of Strathclyde, University of Edinburgh and University of Aberdeen to look at psychological and behavioural sciences with a focus on occupational stress, behaviours relating to wellbeing in the workplace, and responses to stimuli to change behaviour in a technology setting.
 
These collaborations have all been achieved within just an eight-month time frame.

Background

KINGDOM Scotland is developing Scotland’s first creative luxury fragrance house by introducing rare and evocative scents.  As a luxury brand, they source high quality ingredients and their perfume oils are the best grades available. KINGDOM Scotland will draw on the rich flavours and textures of Scotland’s cultural heritage – from landscape and mythology to whisky distilling and the history of perfume in Scotland – in order both to inspire its products and shape its brand. In doing so it hopes to ‘bottle Scotland’ and provide consumers with experiences which put them in touch with Scotland’s complex and fascinating past and present.

Challenge

The director and founder of KINGDOM Scotland, Imogen Russon-Taylor, was initially inspired by her experience working with Scottish whisky brands. She was struck by the connection both between whisky and heritage and between whisky and perfume. Both are produced by traditional distillation methods; both evoke a complex sensory experience; and both rely upon the innovative use of ingredients or flavours to distinguish themselves from competitors. Imogen began to consider the potential for a new brand to ‘bottle Scotland’ and to use perfume to share old narratives in new ways as there were rich stories associated with perfume and natural ingredients in Scotland.

Imogen didn’t have the skills to access these stories through archives and national records so she approached Interface to help her find the necessary university expertise. 

Solution

Imogen was put in touch with PhD student, Dawn Hollis, a historical researcher at the University of St Andrews, to help her look into the history of Scotland’s perfume and to look into sourcing ingredients that had a heritage in Scotland. 

As Dawn focussed her research on the archives and Herbarium collections of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh, Imogen became increasingly keen to incorporate the results of this research into a ‘Botanicals’ range, with a focus on ingredients either found within or with a strong connection to Scotland. Dawn suggested drawing upon the collections of famous or interesting Scottish botanists in order to add more exotic flavours to this range, focussing her research on the collections of George Forrest (1873-1932) and Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889-1982).  Profiles were drawn up for both a ‘Botanical Floral’ perfume (inspired by the collections of George Forrest and featuring scents of champacha, rhododendrons, and honeysuckle) and for an ‘Arctic Poppy’ perfume  (now known as Albaura, inspired by Isobel Wylie Hutchison and drawing on ‘green’ Arctic scents).

The project was funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher.

Benefits

This project will support the development of what is certainly the first Scottish luxury perfume house in many years, if not the first in Scottish history. It is underpinned by the considerable expertise of its founder, whose original inspiration for KINGDOM Scotland was drawn from her experience in the Scottish whisky industry.

Worldwide, Scottish whisky is worth £5billion, making it one of Scotland’s most considerable exports. The global perfume industry, however, is worth £22billion. By bringing both together, KINGDOM Scotland aims to tap into multiple markets, offering considerable benefits in terms of increased revenue and employment.

“Working with St Andrews was very just for this project.  It’s the oldest university in Scotland and by delving into Scotland’s perfume past, it’s been the perfect partnership to bring this project to life”, said Imogen Russon-Taylor, KINGDOM Scotland Ltd.

“Carrying out research on behalf of KINGDOM Scotland was such an exciting and challenging venture – it was fantastic to collaborate with a new Scottish company and to ask new questions of the historical archives based on their needs and interests. It was also wonderful to see my research having a genuine impact on the development of KINGDOM Scotland’s new ranges – not many historians can say they can wear the results of their research as a luxury perfume.” said Dr Dawn Hollis, University of St Andrews.

Kingdom Scotland from University of St Andrews on Vimeo.

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

Background

Whilst two and a half times more heat is consumed than electricity globally, new developments in heat have not been the focus on considerable innovation in recent years.

Sunamp Ltd, which is based in East Lothian, was founded in 2005 by successful technology entrepreneur, Andrew Bissell, who wanted to produce an innovative solution to develop heat batteries that store energy as heat, which can be released on-demand to provide heat and hot water.  
 

Challenge

As over half the world’s population live in densely populated cities and countries there is a clear need for heat energy stores in homes to move beyond gas and for homeowners to adopt solar and heat pumps without compromising on space requirements. Therefore Andrew set out to develop a truly practical heat energy store that was much more efficient and compact than hot water tanks and physically small enough for people to easily store in their homes.

Sunamp’s innovative idea was to create heat storage systems, using Phase Change Materials (PCMs) that are capable of storing and releasing heat as they change phase. In this way excess energy, which would normally be wasted, can be stored as heat for later use. The patented, non-toxic Sunamp Heat Battery stores and provides heat to warm a building or deliver hot water. The energy is released in much the same way as a hand warmer works. 

The issue that Sunamp faced with PCMs is incongruent melting, which affects the PCMs ability to store and release heat over a long lifetime. As a consequence, this was hampering the performance in Sunamp’s heat batteries.
 

Solution

Through Interface, Sunamp was successfully matched with Colin Pulham, Professor of High-Pressure Chemistry and Head of the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, to analyse the PCMs to develop systems that store renewable energy as heat. They did this by developing additives, which would reduce the effects of any incongruent melting and, therefore, significantly improve the PCM’s heat storage properties. This initial project was funded through a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher and although provided some early results, it was only in the close out meeting that the discussions led to further areas to be investigated. The resulting project proposal was successfully awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Case studentship which subsequently resulted in the PhD student upon graduation joining the Sunamp team as their Materials Scientist.
 

Benefits

Since the initial partnership that Interface brokered with the University of Edinburgh in 2008, Sunamp has continued to develop their relationship with Professor Pulham and commenced a new relationship through Interface with Dr Tadhg O’Donovan, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences; Mechanical, Process and Energy Engineering at Heriot-Watt University. The value of the relationship between University of Edinburgh and Sunamp has supported career development and employment for post graduate and undergraduate students, a new area of research into phase change materials, leveraged several £100k of funding and facilitated access to facilities such as the Diamond Light Source UK facility. The collaborative partnership will be submitted as an Impact case study to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 highlighting the significant benefits that have been realised.
 

Professor Colin Pulham stated:

Follow on Projects

Under an Energy Technology Partnership ​(ETP) student agreement two significant discoveries in relation to Sunamp have been published. Professor Pulham now has a Sunamp focussed team working within the University and some of the collaborative projects have secured EPSRC Impact accelerator and Innovate UK funding. 

In 2014 Sunamp secured a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Heriot- Watt University which aimed to integrate and optimise Heat Batteries with Solar Thermal and Solar Hybrid PV-T (Photovoltaic-Thermal) Panels to develop a competitive, on-demand heat supply solution for domestic households.

In April, 2016, Sunamp raised £3.2m for its sales and manufacturing function in its latest funding round led by an international private investor in the energy market.

“The global thermal energy storage market is expected to reach $1.8 billion by 2020 and we are excited about the potential of our product to solve a worldwide problem,” said Chief Executive, Andrew Bissell.

In August 2017 a consortia, which includes Professor Colin Pulham ​with Sunamp and Vantage Power, was awarded £250k from Innovate UK for a project that will look to develop a novel vehicle thermal management solution that addresses hybrid electric bus cabin warm up and thermal loads in stop/start and all electric modes.

In 2017, Sunamp and the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering partnered on a £2 million project linked to clean power and heat generation from the China-UK Research and Innovation Bridges programme, a joint UK/China initiative under the Newton Fund, developing solutions for agri-food, energy, healthcare, and urbanisation.

Andrew Bissell from Sunamp and Prof Pulham from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry won the Powerful Partnership Award at the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards 2019. 

Sunamp signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chinese company Trina Solar, the world’s largest solar solutions company. Trina Solar aims to jointly address the 66m Chinese homes that are heated by coal, converting instead to solar PV-powered heat pumps backed up by energy storage in Sunamp heat batteries so heat is available whenever needed. The excellent performance, quality and stability of the PCM developed early in the University of Edinburgh/Sunamp partnership was foundational to Trina selecting to work with Sunamp. There is potential for very large orders benefiting Sunamp, University of Edinburgh, the inventors and the UK and Scottish economies, and also benefiting the environment via decarbonisation and improved air quality. 

The company also secured £2.2 million in funding from Japanese energy provider Osaka Gas.

Sunamp also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Jiangsu Gomon Renewable Energy Development Co which aims to create an “innovative and unique” heat pump water heater for household use. The partnership aims to develop an innovative and unique heat pump water heater for the residential market, using Gomon heat pumps and Sunamp high energy-density, high power-density Heat Batteries.

Watch the interview with Professor Pulham and Andrew Bissell here: 

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

Background

Christopher McCann founded Current Health (formerly Snap40 Ltd) which proposed a patient health early warning system for the hospital and community. Christopher explained:

“Research has shown that up to 35% of in-hospital cardiac arrests are preceded by warning signs that are missed by stretched healthcare staff. Current Health has developed a wearable medical device that continuously monitors the health of a patient across a wide range of indicators and then analyses this data in real-time to accurately detect the early warning signs of deterioration.  Notifications are then pushed to healthcare staff through a mobile device, allowing interventions to be put in place earlier. This will save lives, as well as reduce healthcare expenditure and stress on resources”

Challenge

As dehydration is a significant problem in hospitals, accounting for approximately 83,000 bed days at a cost of £0.95 billion a year in the UK alone, Current Health wanted to incorporate an ultrasound measurement into their medical device for non-invasively monitoring hydration levels in individual patients.

Solution

The knowledge, expertise and facilities for producing wearable ultrasound sensors were available at the University of the West of Scotland’s (UWS) Sensors and Imaging Group, who have a long history of developing ultrasound transducers. In particular, Dr. Dave Hughes, a Research Fellow at UWS, has devised a novel method for rapidly fabricating ultrasound transducers that operate at high frequency, vastly simplifying the process. 

With the collaborative project between Current Health and UWS being funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface, the University of the West of Scotland will demonstrate the feasibility of using Current Health’s current transducers for contact measurements of properties of skin with (a) coupling gel; (b) minimal coupling and (c) no coupling.  The development of the Ultrasound sensor will feed directly into the product design of the Current Health device, with ongoing knowledge exchange between the University and the company.

Benefits

Wearable ultrasound is an emerging field that this project will drive. Currently, ultrasound measurements through skin are undertaken using large commercial scan systems whereas this project demonstrates the use of an ultrasound transducer, developed by the University of the West of Scotland, for portable, wearable, low-power systems. No existing wearable device with the ability to monitor hydration levels was on the market. This will be a significant move forward in the field towards the commercialisation of something completely novel and highly valuable.

The company will benefit via the addition of new value to its proposition, increased ability to sell their product and the revenue generated from this. It will also allow the company to generate a new barrier to competitors entering the market and increase the attractiveness of the company to private equity investment.

The Scottish Economy will benefit through the creation of new jobs, as well as the development of a high growth, high value business headquartered in Edinburgh.

Business Benefits

Academic benefits

Additional Note

In October 2016 Current Health (formerly Snap40) secured £2 million in Seed funding from investment firm Par Equity.

In March 2017, the company was awarded a £1 million SBRI healthcare development contract by NHS England.  The contract supports Current Health to further scale its technology and provides critical validation funding for two clinical studies with NHS Fife and with NHS Lothian’s Emergency Medicine Research Group Edinburgh (EMERGE) based in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

In 2018 Current Health’s wearable device was selected as one of the exhibits for the Scottish Design Galleries when the new V&A opened in Dundee.

In January 2019, Current Health announced that it had closed a $11.5 million (£9 million) Series A funding round led by MMC Ventures.  Legal & General, the FTSE 100 life insurer and asset manager, is Current Health’s first corporate investor and the largest investor in the round as it continues to invest in the future infrastructure of health and care globally.

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

HAS Technology (parent company of CM2000), created ARMED, an Advanced Risk Modelling for Early Detection service which – through the development of a mobile platform – enables health professionals to be identified in a Service User’s home to ensure the right care is delivered at the right time. 

Their technology has been designed so that both Service Users and Care Workers are completely protected, for example, sending alerts when a visit is running late so that advanced action can be taken. The service evidences a range of Service User improvements, tracks the impact of interventions and helps assess customer satisfaction levels. Linking to ARMED’s Family Portal module allows Service Users and their families to monitor the care and gives them opportunities to answer questionnaires that can be communicated back to the Care Provider, Local Authority and NHS.

Challenge
ARMED records around 10 million community care visit logs each month, and also collects a great deal of data on the needs of Service Users. They approached Interface looking at how this data could be used to evaluate the long-term health of an individual, further supporting those administering the care, as well as those receiving it.

According to Brian Brown, Director of ARMED:

“We approached Interface because they have an excellent reputation for linking business and academia.”

Solution
Interface worked with ARMED to develop their brief, sending it to the most relevant universities and research institutions in Scotland. They received a number of notes of interest but decided to work with Prof. Bill Buchanan, Professor of Computing, and Adrian Smales, PhD Researcher at the Institute for Informatics & Digital Innovation at Edinburgh Napier University.

Thanks to support from Professor Buchanan & Adrian Smales, the business secured a £5,000 SFC Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface. This extra funding helped to offset the cost of the project allowing them to process large amounts of data which gave them the ability to assess the likelihood of the onset of illness. This enabled at-risk clients to be easily identified and closely monitored, thus reducing the need for medical interventions.

Follow-on activity

ARMED were so pleased with their initial project with Edinburgh Napier University that they wished to continue the relationship and, in collaboration with Professor Buchanan and Adrian Smales, developed a second project focussed on building a more robust evaluation platform. Their overall aim was to gather additional information on patients’ conditions, in line with NHS and Local Council requirements, developing predictive techniques which help identify those at risk. In doing so, ARMED’s technology is able to pre-empt expensive hospital-based care, helping healthcare providers across the world to save millions of pounds and improve the quality of service to vulnerable Service Users.

The detailed research and development work in both stages was undertaken by Adrian Smales, a Research Fellow at Edinburgh Napier University, and whose research work has been focusing on the detection of frailty using data from a range of sources. Adrian commented:

“We have a long-term vision of using data to detect the early signs of illness, and apply new methods that should lead to improved care and better outcomes for all.”

Due to the nature of the project, and to cover the cost of the research team who were needed to develop the state-of-the-art predictive tools, ARMED once more approached Interface to apply for SFC Follow-on Innovation Voucher funding. The Follow-On Innovation Voucher allows companies to apply for up to £20,000 of funding which requires to be matched with cash from the company. Thanks to support from Professor Buchanan they were again successful and received almost £20,000 of funding which allowed them to progress with the project.

According to Professor Buchanan:

“Currently, patient information can only be effectively captured in controlled environments such as hospitals, care homes or a GP surgery. This project has significantly extended the effectiveness of ARMED’s mobile platform and by applying our research into advanced predictive analytic techniques we have successfully incorporated patient focused data capture with real-time personalised feedback.”

Brian Brown, Director of ARMED, added:

“By working with the University the time to market has been reduced. The development of this new technology has huge commercial benefits and we expect to significantly increase revenue. It also strengthens our export potential. We expect both quality and cost savings benefits for our customers.”

Since working with Edinburgh Napier University, HAS Technology have gone on to work with the Digital Health and Care Institute (DHI). The objective of this project was to apply advanced predictive analytical techniques to the data captured during homecare visits in East Dunbartonshire in order to identify markers which are indicative of the early onset of illness. Leveraging expertise from ongoing work in Primary Care in England will accelerate the integration of the ARMED mobile application into the Frailty Framework in Scotland, providing a unique opportunity to mine data across the boundary between health and social care. 

This collaboration has already been hailed a success in the East Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership Care Inspectorate Report, where it scored 6 or excellent in the ‘quality of care and support’ category.  The report from the July 2016 Care Inspectorate told us:

“The people involved in the project were extremely positive about its benefits.  These included being more knowledgeable and aware about their activity, fitness and heart rate, and more informed about their general wellbeing.”

This is an example of how big data, machine learning and predictive analytics can be used in healthcare, and the collaboration between Edinburgh Napier University, the DHI and ARMED is an example of great Scottish knowledge exchange between commercial and academic partners.

With a proven success rate, ARMED has quickly expanded, deployed internationally, gained Microsoft recognition and created 5 new jobs, demonstrating how AI and deep learning can revolutionise preventative care. ARMED is an example of how SMEs can contribute to Scotland having a globally competitive, entrepreneurial, inclusive and sustainable economy. 

2020 Updates

In accordance with the Medical Device Directive (MDD), ARMED has been certified as a medical device and can now be used in clinical settings.

Brian Brown, director of ARMED at HAS Technology, said: “We are delighted that ARMED has received certification as a medical device. Technology has a huge role to play moving forward and with so much evidence to support the benefits of early detection, this places ARMED in a much more credible position, especially within NHS spheres, to help make a real difference.”

The ARMED clinical evaluation stated that a “proactive approach to falls is considered crucial” and “significant reductions in falls” have been observed in trials when a risk of falling is identified, and the risk is managed.

It also highlighted that evaluations to date have identified clinical trends in patient groups including dehydration, weight loss, restlessness nocturnally, muscle wasting and reduced grip strength, all of which can be monitored by ARMED.

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

The Company

Established in 2011, StEPS Podiatry, run by Vicki Cameron, is an award winning private podiatrist clinic covering Ayrshire and Glasgow.

Currently the official podiatrist to the Scottish Football Association (SFA), Vicki has also worked with Celtic Football Team and the Scottish Athletics Team giving her an in depth understanding of the demands placed on professional athletes. Keen to position her practice at the forefront of sports injuries, Vicki was aware that there was a need for specialist preventative equipment that could only be developed through pioneering research.

The Business Challenge

More than 80% of sports injuries are caused by repetitive strain to muscles, bones, tendons and ligaments and there is a 70% chance of re-injury within this group, leading to significant health and cost implications for players and teams alike. Current treatments are aimed at limiting this strain through functional foot orthosis such as special insoles, but Vicki wanted to create a screening tool to catch symptoms early and so prevent injury development in the first instance.

The Solution

Having worked with Strathclyde University in 2014, Vicki was well aware of the support and facilities available through Scotland’s universities and after meeting Mari Findlay, Business Engagement Executive at Interface, at a local 1:1 Business Support Clinic, she was keen to work with academia again.

Mari worked with Vicki to explore the project objectives and was able to identify a number of academic partners who would have the right expertise and the right facilities to conduct the research. Mari also identified a number of funding options which would help offset the costs of the project and allow Vicki to work with her chosen institution.

As Mari explains, “I often meet entrepreneurs with really great ideas who don’t know how to get them off the ground. They either don’t have the expertise in house or the finances to approach external support. At Interface we have connections to industry experts in each of Scotland’s universities and we can identify funding which will cover their costs.”

Thanks to Mari’s support, and with £5,000 of SFC Innovation Voucher funding, Vicki was able to embark on a project with the University of Strathclyde giving her access to highly specialised equipment including the Vicon Motion Analysis system, a 3D gait analysis machine which, in addition to video, uses both lasers and micro cameras to create a highly detailed 3D image of the foot. A range of information obtained from the scan, such as arch height and the alignment of the Achilles with the leg, is assessed and has provided Vicki with valuable data which she can use in the development of her preventative screening equipment.

As Vicki comments:

“Working with Interface has enabled me to access the most innovative equipment at Strathclyde University.

That’s been a big innovation for us; really being able to use the most cutting edge technology with the most elite athletes, to do something that has never been done before in podiatry.

I found the application process really easy, these pieces of equipment are normally housed in academia and so for a small business to get their hands on them is quite unique – Interface made that possible.”

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.