Smart technology is an even smarter move for business

Smart technology is all around us, making a very real impact in our personal and work lives while supporting smart business decision-making.

Dan Robinson finds out how some Chamber members are deploying various emerging technologies within the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution to take a lead in their sectors.

Sagar Haval has vivid, painful memories of watching patients in hospital intensive care units die from severe heart and lung failure. That he believes insufficient clinician preparation for last-resort therapies was partly to blame made those moments even more heartbreaking.

He identified how surgeons and doctors needed greater realism when training on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a machine that provides extended cardiac and respiratory support to a person whose heart and lungs can’t adequately function.

Having worked as a clinical perfusionist – a member of the open-heart surgery team – and in the field of ECMO therapy for more than two decades, he set up The Simulator Company in 2019 with a vision to create new technology-driven tools for clinicians that would help them to get better therapy outcomes and save more patient lives.

“These products are the solutions to my own problems,” says Sagar, who runs the Leicestershire-based business.

“I used a lot of different training tools and found nothing perfect for bringing realism to a clinical situation, so we are using technology to improve training.

The therapy, which has also treated patients during pandemics including Covid-19 and swine flu, involves cannulation, in which specialised tubes are placed into a patient’s body.

“I’ve seen patients being supported by these therapies where they have a 1% to 20% survival chance, but many times they suffer from major complications or even death due to the lack of team experience in this emerging therapy. I still remember those cases where patients died before my eyes, and I wondered what could have made the outcome different

“Small decisions that can have significant consequences need to be made in a matter of seconds so the most important thing, I believe, is having experience in this therapy to make better decisions in the moment.”

The Simulator Company, which calls on the expertise of a network of consultants, has developed E-SIM and E-SIM Pro, which have been sold to hospitals and universities worldwide, with “amazing” feedback from clinicians.

These patented products, created after four years of extensive research and development, provide a simulation for practising ECMO, also known as extracorporeal life support (ECLS).

This allows blood to circulate into an artificial heart and lung device – adding oxygen, removing carbon dioxide and pumping blood back to the patient.

Using the E-SIM or E-SIM Pro simulator, a trainee clinician can perform realistic cannulation and ECMO therapy procedures on a mannequin. To mimic a real patient’s body, it is equipped with electronics and operated using a remote control to set different complex cannulation scenarios by changing cardiac output, cardiac arrhythmia and heart rate.

E-SIM Pro, the advanced version of the simulator, provides additional features including troubleshooting functions and can be used to perform more than 30 clinical scenarios.

The company estimates it to be 11-times more powerful than other ECMO simulators on the market, and scenarios can be set up within several minutes, rather than hours.

Sagar, who initially ran the business alongside his job before dedicating his time fully to The Simulator Company in September 2021, says: “Previously, there hadn’t been a product made in this category by a clinician.

Devtank managing director Garry Millington

“A lot of small details can get missed out but because of my experience and my partner Babita’s different way of thinking, we’ve made something unique that can have a big impact in therapy training but is also very simple to use.

“Every time a customer gives us feedback, we address problems raised or add some features. We’re constantly learning and innovating – and because we have such a lean team, we can innovate very quickly.”

New products are also on the way this year, with technologies like the internet of things (IoT), virtual reality

(VR) and augmented reality (AR) to be potentially integrated.

“AR or VR could help with making a simulation more realistic and shows the power that technology can have in real-life situations,” says Sagar, whose company won the Excellence in Innovation award at the Chamber’s Leicestershire Business Awards and the Best New Business of the Year at the Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards, both last year.

“There are multiple personalities involved in a clinical scenario so bringing more realism and complexity to a virtual environment will only benefit someone when practising using these therapies – which ultimately will help save more patient lives.”

SAVING LIVES IS clearly one of the best examples of how technology can be a force for good, but businesses are also beginning to identify tangible benefits when it comes to reducing both costs and their environmental impact.

Devtank, a hardware and software company founded in 2014, develops test and measurement equipment, automation systems and design solutions for a host of business sectors including aerospace, telecoms, defence and green energy.

Its prime product is the HILTOP platform, which integrates hardware and software to enable automated testing and measuring.

But it is in the recently-released OpenSmartMonitor platform where it has received the greatest recognition for breaking new ground, winning the Excellence in Innovation award at the Derbyshire Business Awards.

Managing director Garry Millington calls it a “Swiss army knife” for environmental monitoring as it provides a suite of tools for businesses to understand how much energy they use and other environmental impacts.

ENV01, the first product to come out of this open-source platform, is an environmental sensor and energy monitoring device.

Connected via a wireless network within the IoT, the smart sensors can be placed on machinery and other hardware to record live data by feeding information back to a local server that takes the form of a small black box.

An online dashboard provides business users with a view of the data covering everything from electricity, gas and water through to room temperature, air quality and humidity to get a sense of their operational footprint.

“It helps companies to drive down their energy costs, increase efficiency and improve the environment their employees work in, not to mention assist their aspirations of reaching net zero,” says Garry.

“The OpenSmartMonitor saves the recorded data so businesses can compare their energy usage between timeframes, which in turn helps them to see where they waste the most energy and make sure they are on the right track to saving both energy and costs.

“It’s particularly well suited for large industrial premises, with many of our customers making savings on some level.”

One of the big winners has been Lindhurst Engineering, a family engineering business that has used IoT technology to create a “smart factory” at its 20,000 sq ft Sutton-inAshfield plant, which is home to a combination of steel fabrication manufacturing equipment, overhead cranes and welding bays.

By working with Devtank, along with the University of Derby as part of its DE-Carbonise programme, the company estimates it now saves £25,000 per year in energy costs by optimising energy usage.