Simplifying medical language and COVID-19 treatment

We’re celebrating a year since UpHill joined Bynd Venture Capital’s team. This Portuguese startup developed a platform for healthcare teams to do their clinical training and analysis while simulating real medical environments.

Duarte, Eduardo and Luís have made some major steps since they first started UpHill. Lately, they’ve been working on two different projects that will have a grand impact on the medical procedures of their users: the standardization of best practices and a comprehensive COVID-19 treatment approach.

Standardization of the medical language

In a Medium publication, Eduardo, UpHills’ CEO, explains the current problems with the widely accepted best-practices: they are usually translated into algorithms (also known as diagrams, protocols or set of actions) in a random fashion. This means that if a medical professional designs an algorithm with complete creative liberty, five problems will arise:

1. Complexity: the diagrams can be complex, even for experienced professionals;

2. Ambiguity: the different design of algorithms has the risk of not being clear enough, which can lead to patient’s harm;

3. Specialty-specific: particular notations for each specialty blocks algorithm matching and affects patient-centered care;

4. Time-consuming learning curve: new medical professionals might have a hard time learning new representations of protocols;

5. Lack of collaboration: the previous problems create silos and isolate potential contributors to these algorithms.

The abovementioned problems led UpHill to create a new medical notation opened to everyone. As Eduardo says, this new feature is based on four different virtues: it’s mainly analogic, simple and easy to use, flexible and clear. Are you a medical professional? You may try the platform here [LINK].

Best practices on the coronavirus outbreak

COVID-19 has changed how we operate. Our daily lives are not the same since January 30th, the day World Health Organization sounded the alarms. In times like these, we need quick answers, fast-paced solutions and mistake-free approaches.

COVID-19 is new for everyone, including to healthcare providers — who we expect the ability to treat us. In order to avoid missteps, the team made UpHill Simulate available. This clinical simulation software allows healthcare professionals to test their skills on the new coronavirus approach.

UpHill is working hard to make sure medical practitioners are aware of the best techniques and deliver top quality service to patients.