New healthcare app wins award

An Imperial alumnus who has designed a mobile app that could improve the lives of people with Parkinson's has won a prestigious competition.

Bruce Hellman (MBA 2011) has won first prize at the Cisco British Innovation Gateway (BIG) awards for his prototype mobile phone and web application uMotif.  The technology could potentially improve the wellbeing of healthy people and those living with disease such as diabetes and Parkinson’s.

Mr Hellman has won $200,000 in prize money and assistance at the BIG Awards to further develop his application called uMotif. The BIG Awards aim to recognise and support up-and-coming innovators, entrepreneurs and early-stage start-up businesses by investing and supporting their development.

uMotif has already completed a successful trial, in collaboration with Birkbeck, University of London, on patients with Parkinson’s disease earlier this year. They worked with the researchers from Birkbeck to develop the software that could help those with Parkinson’s manage their health and wellbeing better.

Volunteers used uMotif as a reminder to alert them when they needed to take their medication.  It was also equipped with games that the patients used so that researchers could test their brain function to determine if there was any deterioration.

Dr Caspar Addyman, from Birkbeck’s Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, noted that there was a 70 per cent daily use rate of the app, and a trend towards increases in patients taking their medication regularly when they were alerted using uMotif. 

The team now plan to carry out a new trial to test if uMotif be can be used to improve the lives of patients living with type one and two diabetes. The trial will begin in January 2014 where approximately 2,000 patients living with diabetes will be monitored with the device.  The aim is to find a way of ensuring that patients take their medication regularly.

The team also believe that uMotif could be used to keep healthy people even healthier. People can use the app version of uMotif on their phone and input information about their diet, exercise and sleep patterns. The information can be used in consultations with doctors, carers or physios. uMotif gives them a daily score and if it is low then this indicates that the user needs to make improvements to their daily routine.  Alternatively, the information can be used as a prompter by users to go and see a doctor to have a check up if they have concerns.

Mr Hellman, CEO and Co-Founder of uMotif, said: “Mobile and web apps have the potential to revolutionalise healthcare.  We hope that when Umotif comes onto the market next year, healthy people will be healthier, and those suffering from illnesses and diseases are able to monitor their own health closely.”

Mr Hellman plans to officially launch uMotif in early 2014. He will use the prize- money from the BIG competition to further develop the technology, so that it can be used to monitor other conditions such as heart disease.

Mr Hellman received a cheque of $100,000, in a total prize package of $200,000, which includes 12 months of mentoring and advice from IT company Cisco and its partners, including advice in public relations, marketing, Human Resources and legal services.