Robots that help to remove a cancertelemedicine to monitor the health of patients and algorithms capable of predicting the probability of a heart attack. Although they seem science fiction, all these innovations are already a reality. And they are a technological reality that is applied in hospitals of Catalonia, evidencing that the medicine of the future is already here.
He Mobile World Congress (MWC) has been going beyond mobile telephony for years and has opened up to other fields of adoption of the technology. the one of the health is one of the most pioneering and that has been evidenced in this latest edition of the fair that has been held in Barcelona and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, overwhelmed by the deployment of all kinds of health tools that are based on advanced networks of the 5G.
“Technology is going to represent a radical change for health at a global level,” said Josep M. Campistol, director general of the Clinical Hospital from Barcelona. In an act organized by the foundation Mobile World Capital Barcelonathis doctor has pointed out that the digital transformation of hospitals will profoundly change all areas of health, from operations to patient care or the training of professionals.
Catalan hospitals at the forefront
This hundred-year-old public medical center, the first to scientific production of Spain, is a reference in the adoption of health technology. 25% of the visits they make to patients They are telematics, that is, from your home. “Presence is going to be almost a utopia and we will interact virtually,” he added. The innovations applied in the hospital allow experts to save a lot of time and complement their vision. Thus, Campistol explains, up to 80% of x-rays depend on machines.
The idea of the ‘smart hospital’ or intelligent hospital is not new at all. Already in 2010, the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, another reference in technological adoption, promoted a pioneering project to personalize treatment for its patients and accompany them beyond the walls of the facility. More than a decade later, this mother and child center uses virtual reality and 3D to simulate complex pediatric operations before performing them on the patient. “That guidance allows surgeons to go ahead, know what volume of tumor needs to be removed, and make the chemotherapy more effective”, explains Arnau Valls, innovation engineer and project manager at the hospital. In addition, they use the artificial intelligence to detect diseases, social robots to accompany complex patients and have created I4KIDS, a pediatric innovation ‘hub’ to promote new medical devices.
He Saint Pau Hospital He has also participated these days in the Mobile. In 2018, this highly complex Barcelona center promoted Barcelona Health Huba technology association that brings together more than 400 corporations, hospitals, startups, universities and investors to accelerate the financing of innovation projects in digital health. The BHH has been present at several acts of the 4YFNthe hall that the congress dedicates to the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
disruptive technologies
These days, the MWC has hosted the exhibition of various disruptive technologies. This is the case of Rob Surgical, a startup born in 2012 from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Through some controls and using the 3Dsurgeons can control a robot that allows to carry out surgeries hybrid abdominals, giving them a greater capacity for precision and flexibility in their interventions. “It is also an open platform, which can be adapted to all hospitals, which makes the system more efficient,” explains Jaume Amat, the entrepreneur behind this project, which has already raised more than 20 million euros in funding.
Another example of surgical robotics is Version, a British system that King Felipe VI tested on the opening day of the congress. Those robots will rival the American Da Vincithat he Vall d’Hebron Hospital started using it in 2019 for tumor removal.
Showcase for entrepreneurs
Mobile is also a unique global showcase for female entrepreneurs who have built a medical startup. This is the case of the biomedical engineer Judit Giró and his project The Blue Box. This device, which makes it possible to detect breast cancer through urine samples, was in the 4YFN two years ago and this has been moved to the central congress. Along the way, it has been chosen as one of the 20 most disruptive emerging companies in the world.
Other entrepreneurs are taking steps to light their companies. Martí Engli and his team, made up of medical experts between the ages of 22 and 30, have created Room2Explore, a project to make hospital rooms interactive. “We want children to forget that they are in a hospital, to turn their experience into an adventure, as if they were in a story, and so they don’t feel alone in the face of their illness,” she explains. After winning the ‘Hack the Hospital’ contest, they are now looking for partners to develop a first prototype. Mobile is your site.
