Our pitch:
Over 1,000,000,000 consumers with pre-existing health conditions should use a medical alert device to alert medical personnel in an emergency. Yet the number of consumers that use medic alert devices is astonishingly small and patient compliance is very low. In the US alone, over 1,000,000 people end up in ER rooms unconscious or otherwise non-communicative annually. This represents a fraction of this global problem.
Lack of identification and the ability to reach emergency contacts lengthens the time to diagnosis and treatment. This results in longer periods of hospitalization, and higher diagnostic and treatment costs.
What if a picture could save your life? ERinfo uses facial recognition for anywhere, anytime patient recognition and automatic emergency contact notification. By simply taking a patient's picture using a mobile device, first responders can identify unconscious patients with pre-existing health conditions like diabetes, epilepsy or life-threatening allergic reactions. ERinfo is a global solution, leveraging the cloud and WIFI or cellular technology for connectivity making it a truly anywhere, anytime solution.
Enrollment in ERinfo is not be limited to consumers with pre-existing health conditions. ERinfo provides useful medical and emergency contact information to medical personnel that can be extremely valuable for the diagnosis and care of any patient that is unconscious or otherwise non-communicative and unidentified.
ERinfo can also be used during mass casualty events and natural disasters. It’s time to stop hearing about how victims cannot be identified on the news when these types of tragedies occur all over the world. ERinfo can be used for identification and as a proxy health record when conventional resources are limited or unavailable. For example, large populations (e.g. geriatric) can be mass-enrolled ahead of weather-related events like hurricanes.
ERinfo is committed to becoming the global leader in anywhere, anytime patient identification and notification. We believe ERinfo is disruptive and can change the medical outcome of an emergency which will save thousands of lives.
Where our solution team is headquartered or located:
Miami, FL, USAThe dimensions of the Challenge our solution addresses:
What makes our solution innovative:
ERinfo is a new patent pending technology that uses facial recognition and social networks to quickly identify unconscious or non-communicative patients in the field or hopitals. By simply taking a picture of a patient using a camera equipped mobile device (i.e. cell phone), medical personnel and first responders get access to a patient's emergency health profile and contacts. EMTs or ER personnel can instantly send notifications to those contacts. ERinfo validates and ensures that only actively licensed professionals can use the application and access patient data.
How technology is integral to our solution:
ERinfo uses patent pending facial recognition and social networks to quickly identify unconscious or non-communicative patients in the field or hospitals. First responders can quickly access a patient’s emergency health profile and emergency contacts by simply taking a picture of a patient using a WIFI or cellular device. Upon identification, EMTs or medical personnel can instantly send notifications to the patient’s emergency contacts. ERinfo validates and ensures that only actively licensed professionals have access to patient data.
Our solution goals over the next 12 months:
Over the next 12 months, ERinfo primary goal is to advance from prototype to commercial release. Along the way, milestones include completing an IRB approved retrospective patient study with the University of Miami School of Medicine, running a pilot study with paramedic partners that are ready to deploy ERinfo in 2 counties to gather clinical data and to secure its launch partners to ensure a successful commercial release. There will be initiatives to start market analysis and preparation for scaling ERinfo through other markets including Canada and the UK. ERinfo will continue its efforts to patent other add-on proprietary extensions.
Our vision over the next three to five years to grow and scale our solution to affect the lives of more people:
ERinfo is a global solution for a big problem in emergency medicine. We are going to work hard to ensure that ERinfo is adopted as a new standard of care and part of preventative health services. We will leverage our experience and results gathered in the US market to rapidly deploy ERinfo in other countries. In addition to expanding into developed countries like Canada or the UK, we will partner with various foundations to help deliver ERinfo’s life saving technology into less developed countries and to underserved populations around the world.
The key characteristics of the populations who will benefit from our solution in the next 12 months:
The regions where we will be operating in the next 12 months:
The countries where we currently operate:
Where we plan to expand in the next 12 months:
How we will reach and retain our customers or beneficiaries:
Our customer acquisition strategy is to leverage channel partnerships in enterprise healthcare, retail pharmacy and disease advocacy groups to drive rapid consumer adoption using a sponsored subscription revenue model and aggressive, but very profitable pricing.
We have unique value propositions for each channel including augmenting preventative health programs which reduce treatment costs and improve medical outcomes, creating a new direct to consumer communications channel and help with fulfilling disease advocacy groups’ mandates to provide their members with simple solutions for living and managing lifelong afflictions.
How many people we are currently serving with our solution:
ERinfo has not been released commercially yet - it exists in prototype form. As ERinfo is a lifesaving application, the prototype requires additional development to ensure that it operates robustly through its pilot and once released commercially. One of America’s premier paramedic training and technology centers anxiously wants to pilot ERinfo in 2 south Florida counties as soon as we are ready.
How many people we will be serving with our solution in the 12 months and the next 3 years:
We expect to be serving over 200,000 individuals by the end of our first year. We are projecting more than 8,000,000 U.S. users registered by the end of year 3. We will provide enrollment, recognition, privacy, security, reporting and communications services for our registered users. We will work with our channel partners to support their marketing, enrollment efforts and support operations. By year 3, we expect to expand these services into other countries.
How our solution team is organized:
Hybrid of For Profit and NonprofitHow many people work on our solution team:
6How many years we have been working on our solution:
1-2 yearsThe skills our solution team has that will enable us to attract the different resources needed to succeed and make an impact:
ERinfo's founding members are 2 sisters, Ali and Dr. Paige Finkelstein, both of whom are MIT graduates. Ali earned degrees in computer science and electrical engineering, and Paige in chemical engineering and then went on to her MD and MPH.
ERinfo's team is composed of experienced business development and operations members, along with Millennials conversant in the latest programming and social networking skills. ERinfo has accomplished advisory board members.
ERinfo will attract the resources it needs because it utilizes boundary pushing technology, will scale globally, and can make a significant social impact.
Our revenue model:
ERinfo provides life saving technology for consumers, initially targeting those with pre-existing chronic conditions that can become life threatening in an emergency. ERinfo wants consumers, first responders and medical personnel to use ERinfo for free.
We have identified channel partners, who through sponsored subscriptions at $2/consumer/year can make ERinfo available to their members. ERinfo is positioned for long-term sustainability as our solution provides lifetime value. We estimate our customer acquisition costs at $0.40 with a minimum lifetime value of $20/consumer.
Our channel partners include enterprise health insurers who can benefit from better, faster and less expensive care in emergencies, disease advocacy groups (e.g. American Diabetes) who benefit from meeting their mandate of helping 29M diabetics better manage their disease, and retail pharmacy that can better communicate with their consumers and utilize ERinfo's non-protected consumer health data for promotions and loyalty programs.
Once our model is proven in the US market, we expect to expand globally leveraging our US experience and results. ERinfo can be localized and scaled and is truly the first global solution for anywhere, anytime patient identification.
ERinfo has a product pipeline which will see extensions for urban risk applications like natural disaster responses, mass casualty and IoT.
Why we are applying to Solve:
The global standard for medical identification is the medic alert bracelet - a product that has not evolved for 60 years old. ERinfo is going to disrupt this market and become the new, advanced global standard for medical alerts and patient identification. A global change requires a global reach, and we believe that becoming a Solver will facilitate our global expansion. ERinfo’s objectives align perfectly with those of Solve. The powerful network that makes up the Solve community is our opportunity to penetrate the market, push change, and save lives.
The key barriers for our solution:
The key barriers for ERinfo to succeed are completing our IRB-approved and pilot studies. The data from those studies will be used to establish the value of ERinfo for our channel partners. Solve can help in many different ways. One way is with impact measurement validation and support as third party validation of our results adds to the credibility of our studies. Another way is with MIT connections, for example, ERinfo is a great add-on to products being developed in the Urban Risk Lab. ERinfo can also benefit from media visibility and exposure working with Solve would bring.
The types of connections and partnerships we would be most interested in if we became Solvers:
Solution Team
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AF
Ali Finkelstein Founder, Technology Director, ERinfo -
Dr. Paige Finkelstein MD MPH Founder & Medical Director, ERinfo
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Our tagline:
Anytime, anywhere patient recognition and emergency notification