Each week we spotlight one of our DigitalHealth.London businesses, founders or NHS fellows. Today we are excited to introduce Akara, our current accelerator company DigitalHealth.London.
What is the problem you are trying to solve and why is it important?
We help hospitals minimize room downtime while ensuring a safe environment for patients.
High-value clinical areas, such as operating rooms and patient isolation rooms, may be out of service for extended periods (>2 hours per day) due to operational inefficiencies (i.e. (i.e. staff arrive late) and to facilitate tasks such as cleaning rooms.
Addressing this inefficiency could allow hospitals to treat more patients, increase staff productivity and reduce the risk of infections.
What is the solution you have developed and how can it help solve the problem?
AkaraThe technology platform has two elements. First, it includes an AI-powered disinfection robot that can decontaminate rooms (up to 10 times) faster and to higher standards than manual cleaning alone. Second, it includes a digital communications system capable of providing quick notifications to staff when they are needed in a room.
What is the history of your company?
Akara was founded in 2020 and is a spin-out from Trinity College Dublin. The founding team has over a decade of experience developing innovative robotic solutions for healthcare and our work has previously been featured on the cover of Time magazine. We launched our product to market in Q4 2023, following successful clinical validation with hospitals in the UK, Ireland and Japan. We are now focused on expanding into the UK and US markets.
What successes have you had so far through successful pilots/trials/contracts?
In our most recent hospital pilot, we demonstrated that our technology reduced patient isolation room downtime from 4.2 hours to just 36 minutes, a savings of 3.5 hours.
In addition to saving time, in other hospital deployments we have shown that our technology can improve the quality of room disinfection in a statistically significant way, indicating the potential to reduce the risk of patients contracting infections. infections.
What are your future goals? What does success look like?
We are currently focused on demonstrating the ability of our technology to improve operational efficiency in operating rooms. Operating rooms are among the most resource-intensive parts of the hospital and remain heavily dependent on manual processes. We believe automation technologies have the potential to improve staff productivity, enable a more data-driven workflow, and reduce the risk of patients contracting a surgical infection.
How has your time at the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator helped you achieve these goals?
Through networking days and access to an NHS browser, DigitalHealth.London has provided us with valuable opportunities to collaborate with leading hospitals across the UK. These conversations have helped us refine the technology and we hope this will result in a contract in the coming months.
We have also benefited greatly from the webinars and workshops hosted by DigitalHealth.London. In particular, we have gained valuable new insights into NHS procurement and how to build a compelling business case for the technology that will prove valuable in the months to come.
Do you have any advice for future digital health companies?
Aspiring digital health businesses need to understand how procurement works within the NHS and make it a priority to join an NHS framework that applies to their technology. As we learned (the hard way!), if you’re not enrolled in a registered setting, it can be difficult for a hospital to buy your product, even if they like it.
Any requests for the public?
If you would like to learn more about how robotic automation could help improve the operational efficiency of your hospital, please contact us at conor.mcginn@akara.ai.
Akara is currently part of Cohort 7 of the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme.
THE DigitalHealth.London Accelerator The program is funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). It is delivered by the Health Innovation Network (HIN) South London in partnership with the Office of Life Sciences, CW+, Medicity, NHS England, the Mayor of London and the Leveling Up Fund.
For more information, please visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-
Shared Prosperity Fund prospectus.
