Background
One of the biggest challenges plaguing the health care system is the belated recognition of the symptoms of the diseases or the conditions themselves. The core concept behind xbird is the early identification of conditions through the data collected from mobile phones and other connected devices. xbird has taken the digital health world by storm by revolutionizing diabetes treatment.
The technology
xbird makes use of latest data science and machine learning algorithms to detect patterns and alert the patient about a critical situation. They collect data streams from multiple sensors and then process data to arrive at a decision by adding another data layer such as blood sugar level. For example, to alert a diabetic patient, the algorithm collects the sleep and meals data and the calories burnt to warn the patient about the rising blood sugar levels.
They started with diabetes treatment to develop their product because different conditions of the patient can be binary classified. Either, he has hyperglycemia, or he does not. They have used sophisticated algorithms to detect false alarms.
They provide software development kits (SDKs) to solve multiple problems belonging to different use cases and do not develop the end user application.
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How is xbird different from other CGMs on the market?
Some continuous glucose monitoring devices have been floating around in the market, and they work on the concept of time series. They try to predict future glucose levels from past glucose levels which might not be accurate. However, xbird takes into account other factors such as sleeping and dietary habits and the amount of physical work done by the user.
Addressing the security issues
The xbird software is in compliance with all the regulations and makes best effort to follow the protocols strictly. But, the main intricacies of privacy issues are design related problems in which they address questions like ‘who see what.’
Market penetration
xbird is already earning money through their product and has partnered with multiple pharmaceutical companies. They have also started an organization called Die Techniker (TK), the biggest German health insurance company. The team has over 50 publications and 14 patents to its name.
Business model
xbird boasts of having a basic business model in which they have licensing deals with their technology. If any caretaker wants to have access to data, they can help them in setting up the system and infrastructure. They also help them to establish the data stream up and also process the data for other stakeholders like device manufacturers in diabetes. The company is also planning to expand their product to detect critical events in other diseases like heart attacks and stroke.
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