Smarter Diagnostics – sports injury prevention platform based on magnetic resonance imaging and artificial intelligence algorithms
Project title
Smarter Diagnostics – sports injury prevention platform based on magnetic resonance imaging and artificial intelligence algorithms
Name of Beneficiary/Beneficiaries
Smarter Diagnostics Sp. z o.o.
Name of programme
Operational Program “Smart Growth”
Competition
Bridge Alpha
Project value
PLN 1,100,000.00
Funding value
PLN 880,000.00
Project delivery period
15.12.2021 – 28.02.2023
Our team
Bartosz Borucki, co-founder, CEO
He has over 15 years of experience in managing R&D projects in the field of computer vision, artificial intelligence and medical imaging, managing software development projects and creating products in the field of medicine and wellbeing. He headed a research group dealing with medical imaging and artificial intelligence at the Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computer Modeling at the University of Warsaw. He participated in the creation of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Warsaw. He is an active lecturer at Kozminski University (Business.AI – postgraduate studies) and the Medical University of Wrocław (Medical Startups – postgraduate studies). He is responsible for co-authoring the Smarter Diagnostics strategy, project management, legal regulations and compliance. He is valued as a great and meticulous leader.
Norbert Kapiński, co-founder, CTO
He holds an Sc.D. degree in artificial intelligence in the field of medical image analysis. He has over a decade of experience in computer vision research and software development in medicine. His scientific achievements are related to problems of the human musculoskeletal system and its diseases. His focus is always on medical imaging and biomechanics. He is responsible for co-authoring the company’s strategy, managing the research, development and technical team, and business development in the field of screening and sports.
Inventors of Smarter Diagnostics
Smarter Diagnostics Team and Advisors
Results of our work
Materials
Smarter Diagnostics in the TVP program ‘Station Innovation’Video
Issues addressed
The project is part of the trend of shifting the health care model from treating diseases to preventing them and keeping people healthy. It focuses on minimizing the risk of injuries among athletes and physically active people, thanks to preventive diagnostics supported by AI and MRI. The goal of Smarter Diagnostics is to support active people in practicing sports as long and as safely as possible. This approach reduces the risk of unexpected expenses for rehabilitation. Injuries, pain and other ailments often affect the results of games or matches and the final rankings of sports clubs and teams. Thanks to Smarter Diagnostics and its preventive tests, the team can effectively manage the risk of injury and focus on achieving better results. The athlete receives a ready-made report with recommendations regarding diet and training, which allows him or her to save time and take appropriate steps to improve results. Medical teams in professional sports can make better transfer decisions and those related to players’ return after injury. For physiotherapists and trainers, the Smarter Diagnostics is an introduction to more effective diagnostics and better adapted methods of working with patients.
We recommend that every physically active person and those who want to start exercising should start by reviewing their own health condition with the Smarter Diagnostics test to be able to start building their sports longevity in a dynamic and personalized way.
Project beneficiaries
The tests are addressed to every active person, amateur and professional athletes, medical staff in sports clubs, in clinics of orthopedics / physiotherapy, and in medical training facilities.
Smarter Diagnostics has also addressed its offer to employers who want to take better care of the well-being of their employees.
Another group are clinics and professionals in the field of physiotherapy and medical training, whom Smarter Diagnostics encourages to implement preventive tests into their practice of working with patients.
Major implementation challenges
The biggest challenges were the commercialization and the balancing of user needs, grant program requirements and R&D results in such a way as to create a product that was not only innovative, but also market-needed and profitable. In particular, it is a difficult challenge to define an innovation at its early research stage because, as practice shows, only the market can verify our hypotheses.
Building a competent team was also a significant challenge. Contrary to appearances, qualified machine learning and AI specialists are scarce and the cost of hiring them is extremely high.
Finally, as in most med-tech projects, regulatory processes are a big challenge. Meeting the requirements for medical devices, implementing the ISO 13485 or 14971 standard and the EN 62304 standard is a significant additional operational burden that had to be taken into account in the work schedule.
Our advice to other applicants
We encourage each project initiator to confront his or her idea with the real needs of prospective users. Many hypotheses can be verified only by comparing them to market standards and by hearing user comments. We build products not for ourselves, but for our users. This approach is not just an empty phrase, but a recipe for saving significant resources by not doing something that, in the end, no one will buy.
Solving users’ problems is not enough – it is worth focusing on how we intend to solve these problems and approaching users with an innovative solution. Henry Ford once said that if he asked people what they wanted, they would say: “faster horses”. Therefore, when you build a real innovation, you must follow the chosen direction, but also dynamically adapt it to the problem you are solving.