How Uber Diagnostics is combating heart disease in rural India

With its device Cardiotrack, Uber Diagnostics aims to diagnose heart problems earlier, reports Tech in Asia

India is the coronary heart disease capital of the world, and a projected 40% of all deaths in India will be due to heart disease by 2020. It’s a huge problem involving millions of people, but two start-up founders in Bengaluru are working on a way to fix it, one ECG at a time.

The team has come up with Cardiotrack, the first in a line of healthcare diagnostic products from Uber Diagnostics. It’s a small device for doctors that can take a 12-point electrocardiogram (ECG) from a patient, transfer it onto a smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth, and from there it can be uploaded to the cloud, allowing the results to be sent to a physician for evaluation. The gizmo can also sound an alarm if an irregularity is detected.

An ECG, also known as an EKG, measures the electrical patterns of the heart non-invasively, and can be one of the simplest indicators of a heart problem – including an impending heart attack. However, staff need to be specially trained on where to put the electrodes in order to obtain an accurate reading. Cardiotrack boasts that it’s so simple to use that training for the device takes 20 minutes or less.

The idea of Uber Diagnostics came to Ashim in 2007 when he was travelling in the rural areas in Karnataka and realised he could help solve a part of the healthcare problem in India’s countryside – namely, that affordable preventative care for heart illnesses was unavailable. Co-founded by Ashim and Avin Agarwal, Uber Diagnostics got its start in 2012, working with St. John’s Research Institute. The centre is affiliated with a medical school and hospital.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.