Catalyst Awardee

Project Description

Hephaï

Serge Kinkingnehun, PhD; Valery Trosini-Desert, MD; Thomas Similowski, MD, PdD; Ludovic Minvielle, PdD; Yasser Hariri, MSc; Sylia Boumedjane, MSc
Competition Sponsor: EIT Health of the European Union
Award Year: 2021

It is now clearly demonstrated that the use of inhalation devices for asthma and COPD symptoms (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) results in 30% to 40% critical error due to misuse.
Proper use of inhalation devices is crucial to the relief of asthma and COPD symptoms and to the prevention of exacerbations of these diseases. The misuse of these devices is currently considered a major problem.
Inhaled treatments are difficult to take because of the need for more or less complex successive manipulations, which are not always very intuitive. The inhaler misuse leads to significant medical and economic consequences: a negative impact on the clinical efficiency of treatment and unnecessary expenditure for the paying agencies with direct and indirect costs related to misuse estimated between $6 and 12 billion in the US.

HEPHAÏ is a multi-device application (IOS, Android Windows) and kiosk (terminal) based on artificial intelligence, allowing to recognize the proper use of prescribed inhalers in asthmatic and COPD patients.

The application:
1) Allows the patient to film himself directly in front of his application [from his smartphone, computer, tablet, terminal… ] when he takes his inhaler.
2) Interviews an AI-based on patient behavior analysis (movements and sound). The algorithm is able to recognize the right/bad actions/gestures (that is to say the right use) for the inhalers.
3) Gives the patient an immediate feedback that will inform the patient of whether or not the inhaler is taken correctly and why.

 

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