Around the world today, mothers are being monitored for life-threatening conditions when they are giving birth with the same technology that was being used to monitor their grandmothers in the 60s.
Currently, to monitor for potentially life-threatening post-partum haemorrhage, a clinician has to watch and wait for at least 500ml of blood to be lost by the mother after they give birth.
If this happens, there is then very little time to respond reactively to this, with the condition potentially becoming life-threatening within as little as three minutes.
It’s an area of medicine that is yet to fully enjoy the benefits that innovative new technologies can offer to healthcare.
That’s where NSW-based tech firm Baymatob comes into the picture, with its artificial intelligence-powered maternal and foetal health platform Oli.
With the help of AI, Oli provides an early warning for treatable complications during labour and post-pregnancy, including post-partum haemorrhage. The wearable device obtains a unique and complex dataset that is then processed using the company’s proprietary machine learning algorithms to provide meaningful insights to clinicians.
“Oli’s early warning provides at least one hour’s notice prior to birth that a haemorrhage is likely, allowing for proactive and preventative clinical actions,” Baymatob chief executive Tara Croft told InnovationAus.
“With the Oli platform, we aim to allow clinicians and patients to not only monitor labour and childbirth, but to assess, predict and prevent the leading causes of pregnancy risks and adverse events before they occur.”
Baymatob’s Oli is a finalist in the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence in the AI Industry Pioneer category. You can secure your tickets to the black-tie event here. The AI Industry Pioneer category is sponsored by the National Artificial Intelligence Centre.
Oli’s primary markets will likely be in Australia and the US, and the product is currently pre-regulatory approval and pre-market in all jurisdictions. This process is underway in the US and Australia, and the product has been granted breakthrough device designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for accelerated regulatory review.
Baymatob is planning for a full commercial launch for Oil in the third quarter of 2026, with a clinical trial to begin by the end of the year.
The Oli platform consists of a wearable sensor, electrodes and a terminal powered by a machine learning algorithm, providing more useful and powerful insights than the existing options.
For post-partum haemorrhage, Oli can provide at least one hour’s notice before birth that a patient is likely to experience the condition, giving far more time for it to be treated and the risks to be mitigated.
In Australia, 600 patients have been monitored using Oli, with 10 million maternal heartbeats and 40,000 contractions recorded.
A pilot study of the product was completed in April last year, with 500 women participating. The study found that more than 80 percent of mothers with post-partum haemorrhage could have clinical attention before bleeding actually starts using the monitoring technology.
In February this year, the company secured a share of a $3.25 million grant from the federal government’s Medical Research Future Fund as part of its ANDHealth+ digital health commercialisation program aimed at funding startups that are incorporating AI and machine learning into healthcare.
Being a finalist in the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence is recognition of Baymatob’s efforts to improve health outcomes for women going through pregnancy.
“We are immensely proud that our trailblazing utilisation of AI to improve and save the lives of mothers and their babies is being recognised, especially because maternal health is a particularly underrepresented area of innovation and investment, and often lacks any recognition,” Baymatob director of commercial operations, Penny Flicker Flicker, said.
“Baymatob’s mission is to fundamentally improve experiences and outcomes of maternal and foetal health, for mothers, babies and clinicians, and address health disparities and inequities in maternity care and women’s health.
“We are proud to be utilising AI to slingshot maternal health to become a cutting-edge area of health.”
Looking for brand exposure in front of Australia’s tech ecosystem? Purchase a table of 10 for the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence and have your logo displayed on screens across the venue and in the event programme as a table sponsor.
The InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence are supported by: Australian Computer Society, Investment NSW, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Technology Council of Australia, TechnologyOne, National Artificial Intelligence Centre, CSIRO’s ON Innovation Program, Reason Group, Q-CTRL, University of New South Wales, and IP Australia.
Protecting your great ideas with intellectual property (IP) rights can lead to lasting benefits for your growing business. IP refers to creations of the mind, such as a brand, logo, invention, design or artistic work. Head to the IP Australia website to find out more about IP, and how it might help your business.
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