Saturday Interview: Fast forward 10 years and we will all be wearing vital signs monitors

The 28-year-old computer sciences graduate from Glasgow then dropped out of medical school midway to becoming a doctor to pursue an idea, to create wearable technology that tells health professionals on the ward when someone needs attention, and he is only now realising the full potential of his and Snap40 co-founder Stewart Whiting’s healthcare device.

It appears they are on the cusp of a medical revolution, says Mr McCann.

The invention is in operation in the US and in the UK on a trial and contract basis, although the set costs and wider availability are still in development and under wraps so far, with a second generation device due for release within a year.

His experiences in his three years studying medicine at Dundee University, brought painfully home when his grandmother became ill, convinced him earlier intervention could help countless patients.

“I was frustrated that we perceived that we recognised patients deteriorating later than we would have ideally liked and wanted to try and build some product that could detect those patients for physicians and nurses, way earlier than we currently can and ultimately I thought if I could get the physicians and nurses to see that patient earlier that would probably be a good thing,” he says.“We then realised that one of the only ways of doing that was to build a device to actually monitor the patient in real time."

The prototype sits on the upper arm of the patient and monitors them across more vital signs than similar devices "with the same accuracy as an ICU monitor beside the bed".

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“Then we are trying to take all of the data from that in order to take to the physician or the nurse to say we think this is the patient who requires some kind of attention from you, and you might want to go and review them.”

He said the device would be a critical assistant to medical staff but could not replace human intervention.

“We really are an assistive tool to the physician and the nurse and, to get them to the patient who most needs their attention at that point, and we do that both at the hospital and the home.

“At the very initial genesis of the company we were very focused on in-hospital.

“We thought it would be the most useful and most valuable there because right now every hospital spends several nursing years of time every single year just collecting vital signs from the patient.

“That is definitely true, but what we’ve also found is that there is significant interest and scope to do this in people’s own home.

"So as our society gets older, we suffer more chronic diseases, we have both in the UK and US to adjust our patient healthcare so that more is being done in the patient’s home."

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However, he said: "The patient’s home is effectively a black hole.

"Once the patient is there we have very little idea what is happening with them.

"If we can monitor them passively at home and work out whether things are going wrong that can be of great assistance to help care providers and the patient in keeping them alive.

“We have already seen patients who we have prevented having to go into hospital because we brought attention to them earlier and that is not only exceptionally good for the health system in terms of money, but the ability to stop someone having to go into hospital can save someone’s life and have a dramatic impact on them and their family.

“So it is quite a cool company you get to build.”

Mr McCann says: “We had one patient in particular who was beginning to show a significant deterioration in their vital signs and that was detected by the nursing team who were able to then reach that patient and provide treatment in their own home and their care physician said in their view the patient did not have to be admitted at that point.

“The cost saving was significant but the impact on that person’s life is enormous.

“We sell on a monthly subscription model so we are effectively trying to almost become a mobile phone contract to safeguard a life.

“The exact price is variable but the point is can we for a relatively low monthly cost do that, and contrast that to the technical model of buying products which is an enormous up front capital cost.

“An ICU monitor can be £5-15,000 plus a significant ongoing service contract.

“We wanted to make that a lot simpler."

The idea was well received at its 2014 inception by backers like Scottish Institute of Enterprise, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish EDGE, and raised initial Par Equity-led seed funding at £2 million, and a £1m development contract with NHS England.

Now, it has just secured a record £6.1m in seed financing from technology-focused venture capital firm Accelerated Digital Ventures with support from MMC Ventures, involving Craneware co-founder Gordon Craig and Skyscanner's Gareth Williams.

• Read more: Medical start-up wins £1m NHS contract

The company is also receiving continued support from existing investors Par Equity and the Scottish Investment Bank.

It means the ramping up of a US push where the firm has clinical trials and pilots with several hospitals and institutions.

The Edinburgh-based firm has opened an office in New York, and the gameplan, headed "rapid expansion", is under way.

He said: "In terms of where we are today, we are 25-ish employees, we are growing that really rapidly and doubling our head count in the next six to nine months.

"We are very much sector leading, so we are focusing on getting that into the hands of a number of early adopter customers for us mainly in the US but also the UK and making that product amazing for them and then we will release the second generation in about nine months’ time and then our focus will be scale and growth."

He said: "We are very orientated to the US. It is a huge market and we think there is an enormous amount of potential for it there.

"There is an enormous potential for it in the UK also, but the UK is historically difficult for early stage companies to penetrate on the healthcare side.

"Broadly beyond that, it really is too early to say, but I think we would be mad to be ignoring a market like China.

"As a result of the one-child and two-child policies the Chinese have a significantly elderly care problem, with too many old people and not enough young people to care for them, which basically magnifies the healthcare problems that we have here."

The scope of the monitor is wide at this stage.

"The most common diseases that a patient will have will be things like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), heart disease, diabetes and so on, we don’t right now specifically stratify for specific diseases so it is very general, so it is that you are just getting sicker.

"Over the next 24 months one of the things we are doing is starting to collect data on patients with specific diseases and then we are using machine learning or artificial intelligence to built models or algorithms that can predict someone’s onset or deterioration in those diseases."

Asked if he envisages a day when every older person will have one of these at home, he says: "You see, I would go even further.

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"I think if we were to fast forward ten years, 20 years, that every single one of us will probably have something that we wear that you don’t even notice and that is keeping track of our health and is bringing healthcare to us before we even know that we need it.

"Obviously there’s a huge societal, privacy and technological implications in doing that. I don’t profess to have the answer to any of these yet but I’m pretty sure that future is the right one, and I fully intend us to be the company that delivers it."

The firm has already gone down in history, with a place in the design section of Scotland's newest museum.

"I suppose it is incredibly minor thing, but one cool thing is we are now featured in the V&A in Dundee - which we’re pretty proud of."

SIX QUESTIONS .......Christopher McCann, Snap40

What countries have you most enjoyed travelling to, for business or leisure, and why?
I spend most of my time now in the United States. One thing I particularly love about the US is the heterogeneity

When you were a child, what was your ideal job? Why did it appeal?
The first "job" I remember dreaming of was being an astronaut. My mum always encouraged me to dream of exploration and that I could achieve anything with enough hard work.

What was your biggest break in business?
When we convinced an NHS health board to help us out on the first clinical study of our device. We had nothing, we were super early stage, and they agreed to work with us. We wouldn't be here if they hadn't supported us. 

What was your worst moment in business?
The failure of my first start-up. I felt like a failure personally. I was a failure personally. But building a start-up is an exercise in personal resilience. Failure taught me that. You get back up and you get on with it. That's how you win. 

Who do you most admire and why?
Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. Nike's brand, exemplified by the recent campaigns around Colin Kaepernick and Serena Williams, comes from the culture Phil Knight created at Nike. It shows that a brand can exist to further social cause, as well as for commercial growth.

What book are you reading and what music are you listening to? What was the last film you saw?
Currently, I'm reading Gang Leader for a Day, which is about a sociologist who embedded himself with one of the Chicago gangs. My music taste revolves around shutting out the world to focus on work so I particularly enjoy Above & Beyond, an English electronic music group.

CV: Christopher McCann was the first in his family to gain a degree in his discipline, an MEng Computer Science, at the University of Strathclyde, for which he obtained a Distinction.

Also the first in his family to study to be come a doctor, Mr McCann gained entry to become a medical student at the University of Dundee, where he stayed for three years, gaining experience on the wards and in the lecture halls before leaving to become chief executive and co-founder of Snap40.

The rapidly growing company currently employs 25 with offices in Edinburgh and New York, although the numbers are expected to increase in the next 12 months.