'GPS for indoors' given £50k Innovate UK grant to power health apps and platforms

Navenio, the healthcare scale-up whose location-based technology has been shown to double the throughput of hospital teams, has received around £50,000 from the UK government and Innovate UK.  

The Oxford University spin-out provides infrastructure-free indoor location solutions, the equivalent of GPS for use indoors, to power a range of apps and platforms in sectors including healthcare.

Hospitals use Navenio’s AI-led ‘Intelligent Workforce Solution’ (IWS) to assign tasks to healthcare teams based on their location. This helps prioritise workload in real-time on the basis of ‘right person, right time, right place,’ with a system that uses smartphones.

Out of 8,600 applications, the funding was awarded to Navenio by Innovate UK, as part of a wider £40 million investment in fewer than 800 businesses, to further develop its IWS solution. The money will enable hospital teams to use IWS for business continuity planning, to handle higher case workload, and to rapidly train and on-board new staff. Other projects benefitting from the funding include virtual reality training platforms for surgeons, virtual farmers’ markets and further innovations borne out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Business secretary Alok Sharma said: “The Coronavirus crisis has created challenges that impact the way we live, work and travel, but has also prompted a wave of new innovations as businesses look at ways to solve some of the challenges facing our world today. This funding will support UK start-ups to deliver potential solutions, services and ways of working, and help ensure the long-term sustainability of these businesses.”

As part of a three-month development project, Navenio plans to deliver a significantly enhanced IWS solution, specifically targeting improvements across infection control rapid response cleaning, porter tasking and task management.

Tim Weil, CEO of Navenio, added: “The long-lasting effects of COVID-19 demands the rapid deployment of logistics teams across hundreds of hospitals, both UK and worldwide. This funding from Innovate UK will help dramatically improve patient flow within hospitals, which in turn will free up beds for new patients and help make sure that scarce resources are available to those who need it most, as well as help protect the frontline staff we all rely on so much.”