Feedback (FDBK ) has received non-equity funding from Amazon Web Services in support of its tuberculosis (“TB”) screening solution which is to be piloted in rural communities in India.
The specialist clinical communication company was awarded the funding through Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Diagnostic Development Initiative, which is focused on accelerating research and innovation to advance the understanding and detection of infectious diseases.
Funding will cover the initial cloud hosting costs of the TB screening service in its pilot stages, ahead of Feedback’s plans to scale the service in India should the pilot prove successful.
Feedback will partner with AWS to establish and deliver the cloud-based TB screening solution which acquires X-ray images in rural communities pushed by the Company’s Bleepa Box straight to the cloud to be processed by clinical and artificial intelligence (“AI”) partners.
The Company explained to investors that the TB screening pathway, which will be hosted on Bleepa, will connect remote communities with clinical experts and the latest technologies for a point of care diagnosis of TB “in almost any setting” and this will be hosted on AWS Cloud.
“This rapid, point-of-care diagnostic service leverages the power of cloud to ensure that TB screening can be scaled to rural locations across India,” the Company noted this morning.
TB represents a large public health issue globally and India experiences an estimated 2.6m new cases every year. Feedback says ‘a robust screening programme, delivered locally to citizens’ is essential in order to identify those affected and initiate treatment for the condition.
Whilst existing methods of screening such as chest X-rays are a key screening investigation for TB, they require interpretation by either a specialist clinician or suitably regulated AI technology, neither of which are available in most rural settings, the Company explained.
Addressing its shareholders, Feedback stated that its technology enables a chest X-ray image to be pushed over a mobile network to the cloud where it is shared by Bleepa ‘either with a specialist clinician for reporting or a suitable AI tool, the results then being shared through Bleepa with the TB screening service, often within minutes of an image being acquired.’
Following this process, specialist TB clinicians can then advise on each patient’s management by using Bleepa’s patient-specific chat feature to connect directly to TB screening personnel in order to initiate treatment whilst the patient is still in the vicinity.
‘The image and any clinical reports or discussion will then be stored in a CareLocker - a cloud container that stores medical data at an individual patient level - for every patient, which could enable the creation of citizen health records in line with the National Digital Health Mission record of the Indian government,’ it said. The entire solution will be hosted on AWS cloud.
Commenting, Dr Tom Oakley, CEO of Feedback, said: “We are delighted to have AWS as a partner in our TB screening programme. This funding support will enable us to establish and subsequently scale the TB screening solution to citizens in rural locations across India. It is a key public health priority and a challenge of enormous proportions. To have AWS support and backing will make all the difference in getting this out to the citizens who need it.”
“Cloud-powered diagnostic tools are critical in the fight against tuberculosis and other infectious diseases,‘’ said Maggie Carter, Global Lead, Social Impact at AWS.
She added that, “Over the last year, AWS has seen inspirational results from the Diagnostic Development Initiative. We look forward to helping Bleepa and other organizations worldwide use the cloud to mitigate current and future infectious disease outbreaks.”
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