Health care in general and primary care, in particular, are in many ways too heavily burdened for healthcare professionals to be able to focus on disease prevention. Often, health problems and diseases are discovered too late, only when the patient has developed more serious symptoms. This risks leading to great personal suffering for the patient and high treatment costs for the healthcare system. The combination of healthcare cost trends and an aging population will lead to an unsustainable burden on society, and therefore it is more important now than ever to focus on preventive care.
Our vision is to improve people's health by creating a proactive healthcare system. It requires us to think differently about the entire patient journey and take advantage of the potential of modern technology and AI.
Neko has developed a new scanning technology for the broad, non-invasive collection of health data. The technology is scalable and available to broad patient groups with the aim of giving more people the opportunity to be proactive about their own health.
The technology can easily and cost-effectively collect, interpret and visualize millions of data points to help doctors detect diseases in time.
In a few minutes, the examination collects over 50 million data points about the skin, heart, vessels, respiration, microcirculation, and more. The data points are analyzed by an AI-powered system and the results are then visualized for the doctor and patient.
Neko's technology is basically a self-learning AI system whose diagnostic ability improves over time. Since its inception, Neko has worked closely with academic research. The company is currently conducting four clinical studies to evaluate the safety and performance of its product.
A scan:
Uses more than 70 sensors to collect 50 million data points and 15 GB of health data in minutes
Can detect changes in the skin as small as 0.2 millimeters
Acquires cardiology data that includes ECG, heart sounds, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, arterial stiffness, pulse width, breathing, heart rate, etc.
Gives the patient access to their health data in an app with the possibility to follow their health parameters over time
The following description applies to a visit to Neko's own health practice (other healthcare providers' patient journeys may differ in use and process).
The patient himself books his visit on Neko's website – nekohealth.com.
Before the visit, the patient must answer a number of questions about their health and disease history as well as their current lifestyle, to give the doctor a better idea before the visit.
During the visit, Neko's trained operators will carry out the full body scan followed by a review of the results with a doctor.
All health data is available to the patient in Neko's app.
The scan only takes a few minutes to complete.
Currently, four clinical studies are being conducted. Neko Health AB is mainly responsible for three of the studies: DermaFlowAlpha, CardioAlpha, and Spectrum 1. The fourth study, HeartWaves HJN, is being done in collaboration with Danderyd Hospital. Read more here: https://www.nekohealth.com/en/clinical-studies
The clinical studies are financed by Neko Health AB.
Neko wants to help people stay healthy longer. To succeed in this, more people need to understand their health and risk factors for ill health. Our technology is a tool for just that. The problem today is that many early abnormalities are not detected in time, including cardiovascular problems which are often easier to treat if detected early but which can have serious consequences if left untreated. In addition to giving doctors tools to detect early signs of ill health, Neko also empowers patients to be proactive with their own health. We also believe that it is better to make patients aware of their health status early in order to stay healthy for longer.
All over the world, healthcare has for a long time had an exponential cost development over time. Since 2000, healthcare costs in Sweden have more than doubled¹. In order to face the future of rising healthcare costs and aging populations, the regions will need either big tax increases or big cuts to make ends meet. 80% of healthcare costs go to the treatment of chronic diseases, many of which are preventable².
Therefore, Neko is convinced that the healthcare of the future needs to be proactive. Through early detection, we can prevent personal suffering and the high social costs that serious illness entails. If care is to be able to focus more on prevention, we need to design a system that makes this possible. Then we have to replace time-consuming, manual data collection with automatic and AI-driven ones.
With Neko's advanced scanning and AI-powered software, we can do something about all the above problems. We give patients the opportunity to stay healthy, doctors the opportunity to spend more time with patients, and the healthcare system a way to create a long-term sustainable cost picture.
It is always the doctor who makes the medical decisions.
No, the opposite. Neko's technology can replace the time-consuming, manual data collection that many doctors and nurses perform today. We also believe that our technology will give healthcare professionals a better overview of their patient's health and a greater opportunity to follow health developments over time. In the long term, we also believe that technology makes it possible to detect and remedy early signs of disease before these develop into serious symptoms with extensive treatment as a result.
We do not do general screening, which is calling healthy people to find diseases. We offer a health examination with risk assessment for cardiovascular diseases, for people who want to understand their health better. People who pay for themselves come to our health clinic and want an examination and advice on how they can optimize their health and be proactive.
We understand that this type of question arises given the measurement methods that are used today for more extensive health examinations, for example, magnetic resonance imaging. We do not offer MRIs. During imaging examinations, there is a risk of getting so-called incidental findings, without clinical significance. This risk does not exist with our surveys. Patients get to see the results directly and receive a thorough review. Our examinations are always followed by medical consultation. There are no waiting times for the message. The answer is clear immediately and no patients need to wait and worry.
A large part of our business is conducting research where we must review a number of connections, for more preventive and socially beneficial health care.
We believe the important question to ask is how health data is collected and analyzed. The opportunities for extensive data collection are limited, especially in primary care, as both collection and analysis are often done manually. Instead, Neko has automated both data collection and analysis to create a comprehensive picture of a patient's health status and to facilitate the work of healthcare staff. Recent advances in modern technology and AI make it possible to detect and treat health problems before they develop into serious illnesses in a completely different way. We have an obligation to take advantage of these advances to help people stay healthy.
We will not sell your patient data. Like all other activities in healthcare, we are obliged to comply with all legislation that regulates patient confidentiality, patient data, and personal data.
—
¹ Worldbank - Current health expenditure per capita - Sweden https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?locations=SE&name_desc=false
² Sweden's municipalities and county councils - Healthcare in 2035 https://skr.se/download/18.7c1c4ddb17e3d28cf9b5eff2/1642579814643/7585-389-5.pdf