RAJAT JAIN
More than 17.9 million people die from cardiovascular diseases each year, according to a 2016 WHO report. And unfortunately, Rajat Jain’s friend was one of them.
A resident of Dehradun, Rajat’s tragic encounter with death is what inspired him to take a definitive step towards finding a solution.
“So many people have lost their lives to heart attacks because of non-availability of monitoring equipment, no routine monitoring, lack of routine heart check-ups, and no early diagnosis. When we talk about remote areas or hilly regions like Dehradun, the condition is even worse. Patients have to travel at least 40 km to reach the primary healthcare facilities, and there is no ECG facility available in such places. Sometimes, by the time they reach the hospital, they either collapse or suffer further complications during the treatment,” says Rajat, who co-founded a Dehradun-based startup called Sunfox Technologies in his attempt to innovate a technology that can potentially change this situation.
The answer to this limitation of resources experienced in remote locations was to create accessible diagnosis technologies. After years of hard work and perseverance, he was finally able to develop Spandan- a matchbox-sized portable ECG device that can detect heart abnormalities at an early stage.
Focused on providing last-mile connectivity to rural areas, this lightweight device acts as a junction box between your heart and your mobile phone. It comes with electrodes that are required to be placed on the patient’s chest. Once connected properly, it can provide heart readings in a few seconds through the phone application, Spandan ECG.
“The device not only detects heart ailments but also classifies 21 different kinds of heart abnormalities with the accuracy of 99.7 per cent in comparison to clinical diagnosis. Within a few seconds of reading, a prognosis is provided on your phone’s screen and can be understood by anyone, not necessarily a doctor,” he adds.
So far, they have been able to sell over 1000 devices and are working on creating three more variants of Spandan in the coming year.
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