Vigil gets primed for global push

Vigil Monitoring co-founder Sir Ray Avery says the company's latest product can disrupt the insurance industry.

Vigil Monitoring is gearing up for global expansion as the digital healthcare company takes its personal emergency response units into the US market.

Vigil Monitoring co-founder Sir Ray Avery said the latest development in the technology was set to disrupt the health insurance market by allowing companies to add value to customer policies through personalised biometric monitoring.

The technology, backed by Spark and Bupa, records a wearer's heart rate, temperature and other patient details from wireless devices, including smartwatches, before loading them to its database.

"I think the major market for the product apart from the consumer market is the insurance business," Avery said.

"[Companies] can make an insurance premium for you based on Vigil - so with this network analysing system you can look at a customer and say, 'Well we can give you a discount because based on this you're fit and healthy so why should you be paying a high premium just because the average person your age is much sicker'."

The personal emergency response units, designed to work in conjunction with patient wristbands, can give family and caregivers direct access to the device and its information from anywhere in the world.

According to Avery it was the beginning of the "intranet of health in the future" adding that the platform was a step-change in personalised biometric monitoring.

"Our Virtual Biometric Network represents truly disruptive healthcare technology, it's a two-way listening and analytics platform which will change the way we monitor our own health trends and those that we care about," he said.

Chief executive Alan Brannigan describes the cloud-based Vigil system as the company's "secret sauce".

"Our ability to connect with smartphones, smart watches, wearables and other connected devices means we can establish a pattern of normality for someone and then look for outliers which trigger pre-emptive and supportive actions," Brannigan said.

"Our ability to track these devices and provide new features 'over the air' provides our channel partners with a level of flexibility and future-proofing that doesn't exist today."

Last week, the healthcare company successfully closed the first round of its capital raising of $1 million.

It is now seeking a further $4 million to fund its global expansion programme.