‘Every Moment Counts’: Moxiam, a Gothenburg-based Healthcare Technology Company, Plans to Expand Internationally’

“Moxiam is selling both direct to consumers and private and public elder care providers.”

When Moxiam co-founders, Orvar Hurtig and UIf Ivarsson, met in 2016 they shared similar “sad” experiences concerning their parents being in dire need of assistance.

At that time there were no easy-to-use tools or solutions to monitor our parents’ situation. Besides, living several hours away took a toll on all of us. The people in home care and nursing care delivered heroic services, but it wasn’t enough.

Orvar and Ulf have complementary backgrounds. Orvar, a tech-savvy, then being VP of Industry and Society (IoT) at Ericsson, and Ulf, with business orientation and decades of experience from building companies, private equity, and venture capital, decided to bring a commercial solution to market. The founding team also included Jonas Wiberg and Jonas Valkonen, bringing their previous experience from building IoT-based businesses. Moxiam was established and the team set out to deliver an easy-to-use, robust, and affordable solution to improve quality of life, maintain integrity, and give elders and their relatives an opportunity for peace of mind.

Orvar and Ulf realized that they were not alone in experiencing a great deal of worry and anxiety, due to a lack of updated and relevant information. The number of people aged over 60 has tripled since 1950, reaching 600 million in 2000, surpassing 700 million in 2006 and rising to an estimated one billion by 2018. It is projected that the combined senior and geriatric population will reach 2.1 billion by 2050; population aging is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored. As relatives will have to carry an increasing burden for taking care of elders any proper working solution also needs to cater to the need for continuous delivery of information and data concerning our older relative. This is what Moxiam is all about — a service platform that improves the everyday life of elders, their relatives, and progressive caregivers.

Moxiam is modelled on the fundamental blocks of independence, while entirely based on universal human values:

• People want control over their own lives for as long as possible,
• People strive to maintain or improve their quality of life,
• People seek social interaction and relationships with others.

Moxiam’s service model starts from the client/individual perspective and works outwards to assemble solutions that bring independence and improve quality of life. It encompasses self-management and the insight that people prefer to remain in their present living environment while they, at the same time, need an increased amount of services and care, do not wish to be a burden on relatives and aspire to stay as independent as possible.

Everyone has different patterns of movement between rooms, different levels of activity, etc. Moxiam learns an elder’s movement pattern and detects changes to let you know if everything is normal. The Moxiam system uses AI to understand these patterns and identifies changes that can emerge due to accidents or sudden health issues emerging, as well as long-term gradual health deterioration. With these insights, relatives and caregivers can identify changes quickly to be able to act quickly to prolong good health and quality of life. Moxiam is equally useful for people without any health problems to detect and counter health issues proactively.

The relatives and caregivers are getting access to these insights through an app on their phones, indication through green, yellow, and red signals about the present situation and health status of the elder. Notification or alarms can be triggered if there is a rapid change in activity. Simultaneously, the appointed relative or caregiver is notified.

Orvar Hurtig, CEO: In His Own Words

Moxiam offers a real-time, sensor-based subscription service, which gives users (elders, relatives, and caregivers) status, information and analytics, and notifications at their convenience (via an app). Moxiam, a connected 24/7 service, lets you know when something is not right, as mentioned above.

Moxiam is also working on more advanced services and desktop applications for professional caregivers.

We’re working closely with people who are out there every day taking care of elders, either as an employed caregiver, or an engaged relative. The tools we build are a facilitator for them to do a better job, so we always start there.

We want to make a significant improvement in the quality of the care we provide. I think the COVID-19 situation has shown us how much more we have to do to better take care of elders. This has been a huge discussion in many countries across the world and we are of course eager to listen to our customers during this shift in priorities we now see.

Privacy is a key concern in the new connected world, and it has always been central to the way Orvar thinks and Moxiam operates.

A system like this has to have a design that is securely handling data and also collects as little personal data as possible, while at the same time giving all the needed functionality.

That is why we use motion sensors attached to the wall, detecting movement in a room. We’re fully compliant with privacy rules in North America and Europe.

Attaching sensors to the wall also added another benefit compared to wearable devices.

When talking to care specialists and relatives, we quickly learned that one of the most deployed tools is a wearable alarm button that the elder wears as a bracelet or necklace. We thought that was a good service, but we also learned that this system puts high demands on the user to firstly remember to wear it, and secondly to remember and be able to use it when needed. Thus, the idea behind Moxiam was shaped to be discreet and be able to work even without any demands on the elder to operate it.

When talking about the plans for the future, Orvar starts with Moxiam’s reason to exist.

We’re here to make the everyday lives better for elders and their relatives; our goals and plans all serve this purpose. We ask ourselves every day how to do this better and a bigger scale, and for us, it comes down to two categories: reaching new markets and continuously improving our service. In five years, we want to be a global player and want to broaden our service to enable even more interaction and communication. Every person is part of a social context and we have learned that the importance of social interaction is often overlooked. We have to make sure that an elder can stay in connection with their friends and family even when they are far away from each other. We’re looking into many different interesting emerging technologies including simple video interfaces, virtual and mixed reality as well as AI interfaces. Although, as of now, our focus is to continuously improve the core Pattern Detection Platform service model and scale it further to the market.

Currently, Moxiam is selling both direct to consumers and private and public elder care providers.

To reach our growth ambitions, we’re looking to build a global network of partners to access new markets. Every country has something unique in terms of buyer behavior or how the elder care market is structured. Adapting to the local flavor is crucial, in other words.

In Moxiam’s home market, Sweden, the service is already available through Moxiam’s Webshop.

“The system consists of sensors, cloud service, and a mobile app. The sensors detect movements in the home and via Moxiam’s cloud service, the movement pattern is compared with the everyday routines that the resident normally has. You as a relative can easily see via the mobile app if everything seems normal or if there are deviations.”