Samsung and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), have partnered to speed up innovation in the preventive health technologies arena, which will enable the commercialization of new sensors, algorithms and digital health technologies for preventive health solutions.
The two entities have set up a testing lab which will act as a test bed to ensure that these devices will be able to accelerate adoption of new preventative health solutions.
The effort will be called UCSF-Samsung Digital Health Innovation Lab, joining Samsung’s initiative to partner with global healthcare institutions to enhance next-generation preventative health technologies and UCSF’s Center for Digital Health Innovation (CDHI).
The inaugural projects from CDHI include collaborative care platforms using social and mobile communications technology, smart diabetes management apps, clinical trials platform using social media, mobile technology and real-time sensors focused on heart disease and other platforms to integrate patient data with multidisciplinary input and evidence.
Samsung Electronics president and chief strategy officer Young Sohn, who is spearheading the effort, said harnessing new preventative health technologies to help people live healthier lives is the next great opportunity of our generation.
"We invite the world’s innovators and entrepreneurs to join us to validate their new sensors, analytics, and preventive health solutions in a world class setting," Sohn added.
"Samsung’s global Digital Health Innovation Lab initiative is aimed at enabling great new ideas to be tested, validated, and commercialized more quickly, thereby making lives better for millions of people around the world."
With the advent of technologies such as wearable computing, health sensors, and cloud-based analytics promise to help people take control of their own health and to improve the quality of life for millions of people.
However, most of these devices and technologies lack medical validation which renders their impact circumspect, at best.
But Samsung and UCSF aim to address this challenge by leveraging UCSF’s deep expertise in medicine and digital health and Samsung’s leadership in electronics and mobile technologies, to rapidly develop new, effective technologies.
UCSF associate vice chancellor for Informatics Dr Michael Blum said there are many new sensors and devices coming onto the market for consumers, but without medical validation, most of these will have limited impacts on health.
"Meanwhile, many practitioners also have creative ideas for new devices, but they lack the technological knowledge to fully develop them," Dr Blum added.
"This partnership will bring together these two very different worlds of expertise with the resources needed to accelerate new and disruptive technologies that will truly change lives."