Irish firm’s wearable camera allows paramedics stream to hospitals

Dublin-based medtech company RedZinc is seeking to raise €300,000 to accelerate its growth after developing a wearable camera for paramedics to facilitate real-time video streaming to hospitals from the scene of an emergency.

The BlueEye Handsfree is a wearable, mobile, point-of-view, wireless video delivery platform designed for paramedics. It also facilitates remote training, consultation or expert advice via live video.

“Imagine a situation where a paramedic arrives at the scene of an accident and finds the health of an injured person is deteriorating quickly,” said the company.

“In such a scenario, every second matters and remote assistance to the paramedic from an experienced medical professional can enhance patient outcome.”

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First-aid responders can send a real-time video using a wearable camera to a remote expert, such as a hospital’s chief medical officer. The real-time video along with the audio enables enhanced assessment, and quicker and more efficient decision-making.

Similarly, a medical professional can use the technology to observe the patient in isolation while relaying video in real-time to a medical team of experts elsewhere in the hospital.

Each unit costs an average of about €235 per month, which encompasses the physical infrastructure and the cloud-based technology to stream the content from one location to the other.

The company’s technology has facilitated 30,000 consultations to date and is being used for 800 calls per week.

Tallaght University Hospital deployed the device during the Covid-19 pandemic to assist nurses and doctors on wards in assessing and treating patients in isolation rooms.

This prevented medical staff creating unnecessary traffic in ward areas and reduced the spread of infection while delivering patient care. It also saved time and the unnecessary use of PPE gear as only one member of staff was necessary to enter the isolation room.

Founded by Donal Morris, RedZinc has launched a €300,000 fundraising campaign on crowdfunding platform Spark Crowdfunding to scale and accelerate its growth.

Mr Morris said on Monday the device was also being used by a hospital in Finland for medical education.

“Students would previously have been brought into wards for tutorials, but because of the pandemic, obviously they can’t bring as many students in as they used to, so it is being used to show students what the teachers are doing in the wards,” he said.

“If a teacher is at the bedside, they can show what is happening to the patient, how to talk to the patient, how to diagnose, what the right questions to ask the patient are, and how to propose treatment.

“There are several hundred teaching hospitals throughout Europe and we’re looking to contact them all. We’ve already got really good interest. We have more that are using it but we can’t announce yet.”

Spark Crowdfunding chief executive Chris Burge said RedZinc was “at the forefront” of developing innovative medical technology in Ireland.

The company attracted almost €150,000 in funding within 24 hours of launching their crowdfunding campaign. Equity crowdfunding allows hundreds of small and medium-sized investors to purchase shares in early-stage companies.