‘Our mission is to help people take their medications: the right dose at the right time’ – BhavikVyas, ElysIoT, Inc. CEO

“MagiCap helps our patients to take their medication appropriately while providing timely reminders, positive reinforcement, and helpful information on demand.”

It is hard to overestimate the place of the internet of things (IoT) in healthcare these days. Smart devices, wearables, and the overall level of connectivity and innovations in modern medical equipment have changed the industry forever and for the better. Healthcare is embracing IoT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for a range of applications, from robotic surgery to drug development to clinical research. AI is also being adopted as a practical tool to reduce costs, improve outcomes, replace labor-intensive, repetitive tasks that are prone to error, and to monitor patients taking their daily dose of prescribed medicines. Needless to say, taking prescribed medicine when your health requires it, is a must.

ElysIoT, Inc. uses AI and IoT along with sensors and electronics to create an interactive, personalized, but still affordable approach that helps people take the medications they need. ElysIoT’s solution facilitates caregiver involvement and patient engagement with a platform that is accessible for both. The company’s roadmap also calls for pharmacy, health plan, and EHR integration.

BhavikVyas: Interview Highlights

Q. Why was the company set up? How did you expand your company and its offerings over the years?

We heard friends and family telling us about their difficulties in remembering to take medication the right way. That is when we decided to start our company to help our/their loved ones, even from thousands of miles away, in taking the right drug at the right time. We have added features based on studying the market, what other products offer, and the increasing role of third parties, such as health plans and clinical practices, in facilitating appropriate medication use.

Q. How is technology bettering the health care sector? Where do you stand in this ‘future tech?’

Health care is leveraging IoT and location technology in many ways, such as tracking inventory, hyper-local messaging, and personalized support. Likewise, AI is driving myriad uses of health data to “crunch” huge data sets, speed medical coding, and outcomes research; better connect patients to clinical trials, and so much more.

Our IoT-aware pill bottle cap (MagiCap) and AI-driven adherence software (ElyCare), address the roots of dosing issues: logistics, lack of positive reinforcement, and lack of information at the point of dosing. We also leverage voice assistants, such as Google and Alexa devices, to enable ‘on-demand’ communication that fits into consumers’ lifestyles. For example, someone can say:“Alexa, remind me why I am taking atenolol?” And Alexa can give a quick answer to positively reinforce their daily dose.

Q. Should healthcare companies embrace AI to drive business processes?

It is really table stakes at this point to individualize the information and functionality that we provide to users and to use the huge amount of data that health care encounters generate to their best advantage. That is how we personalize health care, and thereby drive optimal decisions by patients, clinicians, payers, and caregivers. Our software is completely AI-enabled. Otherwise, there would be no point in developing it. It would simply be another alarm on your phone.

Q. Can you brief us about your products and services?

Our platform consists of an IoT-aware pill bottle cap (MagiCap), that fits over any standard medication bottle, and which interfaces with our AI-driven adherence software (ElyCare), available on the Web, Android, and iOS.

Patients or their supporters pay an annual fee for the entire system. The app will also be available free for use, without the MagiCap. This system allows supporters such as friends, family, or paid caregivers, to help patients dose medication appropriately while providing timely reminders, positive reinforcement, and helpful information on demand.

Q. How do you manage data collection and analysis?

We obtain a minimum of personal information for application setup, only to enable the use of our system for medication reminders, information, and supporter designation. This information in aggregate is used to inform our development, and to characterize our users as a population to enable targeted messaging and support that is most applicable to that group. We do not share any individual information with a third party unless permitted to share information with a user’s health plan or clinical practice.

Though we are not yet on the market, we anticipate that MagiCap purchase and subscription to our services will be driven by the convenience, cross-platform compatibility, value-added features such as the ability to leverage supporters (friends, family, and paid caregivers), and seamless support of medication dosing – an often-critical aspect of health.

Q. Where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

We hope to be successful in marketing the MagiCap and ElyCare platform, partnering with clinical practices and health plans to help patients at risk dose their medications optimally. We also hope to collaborate with other businesses that facilitate aging in place, disease management, and patients who deal with chronic disabilities at home.

The Valiant Leader Behind the Burgeoning Success of ElysIot, Inc. – BhavikVyas

BhavikVyas, Founder, serves as the Chief Executive Officer of ElysIoT, Inc. He has held several high tech design engineering positions in Silicon Valley over the past 20 years. He developed 5G PHY verification chips at Qualcomm and led formal verification efforts for the Snapdragon processor. At Cisco, he helped design smart meters to reduce energy consumption. He also verified multiple networking chips, including Trident, at Broadcom. Mr. Vyas worked on PCI Express and RapidIO switch development at Agilent. His career began at Intel with the IO controller hub group, as part of the USB group.

“We’re leveraging voice assistants and other ‘on-call’ technology to facilitate aging in place and managing disabilities at home.”