Connected health, the main enabler of outcome-based Healthcare

Serge is currently working to help facilitate innovation in the fields of medical devices and consumer health.

He is involved in the Connected Health Initiative and is project manager for most of the company’s “VENA” demos.

He has received several prizes in recognition of his work, including the 2010 Janus de l’Industrie (the French Institute of Design), the 2007 ProCarton, the Eco-Design award and the 2006 Observer Design award. In 2005, he received first price in the 2005 Rebus Design Contest as well as an Altran Award.

Serge Roux is co-author of five patents in the automotive, packaging and medical areas.

His next assignment was for a main private banking player in the Benelux.  Philippe acted as Account Manager and Business expert for the Private Banking segment. Philippe participated in all main projects (as Triple’A evolution –Mifid related projects – Implementation of performance computation tools – Gips – Statistics) and also with a role of adviser for the Private Banking management.

As consultants, Philippe are included in some project for a Private Banker (implementation of a new front office tool like eXimius – development of new customer report (Private and Institutional) - Gips – Front to back Analysis) or a Asset Manager (Gips project)

What is your function inside the Altran Group and what are your responsibilities?

At Cambridge Consultants, an entity of the Altran group, I have been involved in the “Connected Health” concept from the outset. My job is to identify healthcare trends, evaluate the future value of the “connected Health” concept and manage the development of a number of “demonstrators” showcasing “Vena”, our connected health technology platform.

The challenge here is to persuade people to use new technologies, and the key to this is drawing from the user’s personal experience. Since patients are becoming better informed and more involved in their own healthcare monitoring, the patient-centred solutions are one of the most important enablers of health-care reform.

For our first Vena demonstration we decided to focus on a connected inhaler. After studying the relevant data we realised that in the case of chronic asthma requiring preventive long-term medication, adherence is relatively low. This has a significant impact on healthcare costs in the long term.

Inhalers, equipped with the Vena technology platform can remind users when to take their treatment, record the time of administration, and transmit the information via a secure online network. The costs are minimal.

The Vena platform is compliant with Continua Health Alliance standards, which allow for interoperability with other devices.

Vena-enabled devices allow seamless information transfer to all parties involved in the healthcare chain, thus closing the loop between the patient and the whole health system.

In order to encourage patients to use the device, we have developed an incentive-based demonstrator websites (featuring peer-pressure or financial incentives, etc) to show patients how they can get involved and how adherence can be improved (visit http://www.vena-enabled.com).

The other Vena concept we have been working on is the Vena Hub listening device (gateway). We realised that although there are a lot of medical devices that “speak” (for example scales and blood-pressure cuffs which are equipped with wireless data communication), there are no products specifically designed to “listen”.

The Hub is the most cost-effective “listening” system on the market. Using Bluetooth technology, it collects and stores information from any Continua-compliant device when a reading is taken. The Hub can subsequently be connected to the user’s personal computer and the data transmitted to the relevant back-end database via the Internet. (http://www.vena-enabled.com/VenaHub/VenaHub.php)

Finally, the latest Vena concept is the Minder, which brings the hub to a whole new level by making it cell-based (GSM or CDMA) and giving it the ability to display to-do lists, which are automatically converted from Personal Medical Records like Google Health (http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/news_pr284.html).

In which way is this offer strategic for Altran?

This is strategic for Altran not only because the healthcare industry is so vast, but also because healthcare connectivity and digitalisation offer the Group a competitive edge in this new market. Connectivity in healthcare is lagging new-technology adoption behind other industries. In the Healthcare sector, implementing new technologies is, in fact, a slow process since people are relatively wary (and sometimes rightly so) about changing their habits. With Vena, we may well be a precursor in the field of healthcare connectivity, but we are convinced that the time is right.

While many manufacturers are building systems on the Internet and building systems such as EMR (Electronic Medical Records) that are proving successful, innovation directly related to connectivity products which closes the loop is relatively recent. The Group must secure a place in this niche market so that it can provide solutions for the future challenges in the Healthcare sector.

What can this offer bring to Altran’s clients?

In addition to Altran’s expertise in emerging technologies, we help our clients understand this new world by anticipating the future. Our clients include large pharmaceuticals players, medical-device companies and start-ups. While Altran brings all the different players together on these projects, the initiative often comes from the pharmaceutical companies.

Thanks to systems like the Vena demonstrators, companies will gradually begin to realise that this type of medication system and other types of medical products are being well received and properly used by patients.

Pharmaceutical companies will be able to use this newfound data and refine the treatments and delivery devices they produce. In addition, the political authorities will be able to see how trends evolve, and pass bills accordingly.

From an economic standpoint, because Vena technology is based on chips produced in high volumes for the Telecoms sector, the costs of these solutions are much lower than existing systems. Given the cost factor, we believe, that this technology could be integrated relatively easily.