A surprising proportion of professionals within the healthcare industry find heart monitoring readouts difficult to interpret without help from extensively trained cardiologists. Instead of creating a solution for cardiologists, HATO aims to make everyone a cardiologist. HATO has been selected for the Health Incubator Helsinki 2023 program.

Smart watches and other health monitoring devices are often equipped with sensors to understand fitness levels, sleep patterns, and other aspects of health. A much more powerful, diagnostic version of these electrocardiogram (ECG) sensors is used to detect heart problems. However, the information generated by these advanced sensors is highly complex, requiring interpretation of 12 layers of information from a single series of lines going up and down. As a result, a study shows that 68.5% of heart failure patients are misdiagnosed by their general practitioner. 

HATO’s functional AI overcomes existing error-prone automatic diagnostic suggestions

HATO CEO, Steffen Yndal, further highlights the extent of the ECG-interpretation landscape, “our data show that only 2% of users trust the automated suggestions and only ⅓ trust their own interpretations. The remaining ⅔ usually try to get a second opinion from a cardiologist. Then you can imagine how busy cardiologists can be” says Yndal. HATO’s solution is to collect data directly from existing hospital hardware and analyze it  within seconds with HATO’s advanced AI, utilizing pre-existing capabilities of many modern software programs to retrieve information from servers. The results are then displayed within the company’s user-friendly software, displaying a 3D image of where a potential heart problem may be.

From left to right: Jia Wei Koh, Mostafa Mansour, Malthe Reipurth, Steffen Yndal, Sara Hansen, Louise Huynh and Daniel Hviid.

An interdisciplinary team with research, tech, and business expertise

Equipped with many years of experience in the field as a paramedic, Yndal co-founded HATO along with management consultant and IT strategist Stefan Johansen (COO), and the highly skilled stack developer, Malthe Reiputh (CTO). To complete the concept of a mixed commercial and research-based startup, the trio also invited along a postdoctoral researcher in human physiology, Anne Sofie Malling. These days the team also includes people working with regulatory affairs, researchers, and cardiologists, as well as more tech people. Yndel affirms, “This means that we have many perspectives on our case and is actually the most important part of our team.”

Call for investors and collaborators

Finland has an increasing focus on health tech, along with accessible health data and know-how to test the validity of HATO’s innovations. By utilizing the vast networks and expertise of the advisors within the Health Incubator Helsinki program, the company hopes to attract investors for an initial pre-seed fund of 400.000€. Moreover, as AI in healthcare is still developing,  the company is looking to collect more evidence in collaboration with ambulance services, key opinion leaders, and hospitals to assist in clinical validation. Importantly, there will also be a need for strategic cooperation with ECG providers, hardware providers who could implement the HATO software. If you’re interested in being part of the future of cardiology, get in contact! 

Contact information: sy@hatomedicaltechnologies.com

Check out all the companies in the Health Incubator Helsinki program.

Text: Rita Turpin, Giuliano Didio

Photos: HATO Medical Technologies, Pixabay