The project’s aim is to supply a high-tech solution enabling hospitals and medical specialists to provide a more intense and effective post-stroke rehabilitation in a clinical or ambulatory setting. We intend to present a whole intelligence system which includes data mining, analytics, data warehousing and management, all together based on cloud technology that will enable to extract valuable metrics and parameters providing guidelines about intervention and future recovery. We want to be “the” flagship company in the field of motor rehabilitation, serving an international market.
The majority of the systems on the market are either based on robotics, camera based or electrical stimulation systems. These systems imply a high complexity of use, demanding a constant supervision from a trained clinician and therefore are limited to be used outside the clinical environment or are not suited for a qualitative physical rehabilitation. Furthermore, the great majority lack the ability to extract important metrics and parameters from large scale patient data as these are not stored and analysed centrally using a networked and cloud infrastructure.
The SWORD system has a differentiated value proposition that, contrary to the existing technological solutions in the market, targets its use for full ambulatory use - the holy grail of motor rehabilitation – having been validated as an efficient rehabilitation tool.
For the patient, the value proposition is clear. With the SWORD system, the process of recovery takes place at home and the patient gets a significant increase in the intensity of rehabilitation that will lead to a faster recovery. Furthermore, the continuous documentation of the recovery process allows for a direct quantification of all the small victories that are crucial for his motivation and subsequent adherence to the demanding rehabilitation program.
For the physician, the SWORD system is going to represent a more efficient and effective tool to manage each rehabilitation program with a greater insight. Furthermore, the SWORD Core gives clinicians access to data, results and a whole intelligence system. Based on results from a large network of rehabilitation centres and patients, the clinician can have access to suggestions and protocols that will help him to decide what the best rehabilitation treatment for each specific patient is. Also, it will allow him to compare his performance with other professionals, in terms of the rehabilitation success of patients in similar situations.
The use of this pioneering system in outpatient rehabilitation clinics will represent a competitive advantage against more traditional approaches. Since the SWORD system can be used with remote supervision of the physician that can have access to his patients’ results through the web console, the institution can treat more patients and better with the same staff costs. It will also be able to present better results than competition since it will have access to a powerful tool that will give information about best practices and treatment standards. This information will be available thanks to the great amount of information analysed by the system in order to obtain trends and optimize each treatment for each specific situation. The system allows for the Clinic/Hospital to increase its average revenue per user. In terms of financial feasibility, the therapy based on the use of the SWORD system implies low fixed costs and high contribution margins per therapy unit.
The SWORD system allows for a cost-effective therapy that provides a higher intensity of training, with a greater quality, while keeping costs low.
Due to the baby boomer generation, the market’s demand for rehabilitation services will continue to rise. It is projected that the prevalence of stroke will increase by 25% in the next 20 years. In Europe stroke accounts for around 2 Million people per year. Stroke is estimated to cost the EU economy over €38 billion a year. Of the total cost of stroke in the EU, around 50% is due to direct health care costs, 22% to productivity losses and 29% to the informal care of people with stroke.
Our vision for the SWORD system meets the challenge of providing a more efficient rehabilitation therapy to patients without increasing its underlying costs. We believe that this can only be achieved with a correct implementation of technology that enables complex systems to be used by a patient at his home.
