PaJR is all about data. Longitudinal, real-time continuous data collection is at the heart of how we operate. We understand that data collection, which is currently being done by our incredibly hard-working patient advocates and volunteers, is our biggest bottleneck to unlock our full potential. The more data we gather, the more our patients benefit. Thus, our short-term focus is on automating data collection – we are currently focusing on these domains –
Spectroscopic food analysis –
AI food plate analysis has been hit or miss at best. I’m sure it will get better with more learning, but we identified Spectroscopic foodplate analysis as a reliable way to identify macronutrients in any foodplate accurately. The goal is to integrate this with our current operations on WhatsApp
Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring –
Blood glucose monitoring has been a huge roadblock particularly because it is invasive and quite a number of patients are needle-phobic. We do understand that there are continuous glucose monitors widely available in the market, however, they are prohibitively expensive and have a short shelf life between 10 – 14 days at best. A non-invasive glucose monitor would radically change current models and herald a new era altogether.
Smartwatch based vascular metrics –
The very bedrock of automation lies in its ability to do its job with minimal human intervention. Currently blood pressure tracking has been the gold standard in reliably measuring cardiovascular health/ However multiple blood pressure recordings daily can prove cumbersome and we are aware that there are smartwatches which can track blood pressure but need calibration with a manual BP machine.
Blood vessels are the only system which have access to every other system in the body. Therefore, capturing vascular health metrics can make a decisive headway into radically changing disease outcomes. It is the microvasculature (microscopic blood vessels) which holds the key to decisively understanding vascular health. Photoplethysmography (PPG), heart rate variability (HRV), pulse wave velocity (PWV) & flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) have gathered tailwinds and can take us into the unknown yet!
In the medium to long term
The Sensor –
The holiest grail of all sensors – the one which can crack the input-process-output cycle! Although it sounds like the endgame, history shows us that this is never the case. In a growth-seeking environment, the ‘pie only grows larger’ and humans are (within current constraints of available knowledge) known to have 5 basic senses – touch, vision, taste, hearing and smell with a few additional senses – sense of space and time and position and vibration. If these inputs become measurable with a sensor and the outcomes too are measured, then the ‘process’ knowledge gap can be filled. Thankfully, the potential is limitless, and it is truly liberating to me that we will never get to the bottom of it.