Confident in their technology that can accurately assess a patient’s pain simply from a short video of their face, medtech company PainChek (ASX: PCK) has successfully converted a 6-month trial with one of New Zealand’s largest aged care operators into a full revenue-generating contract.
The contract comes after Summerset Holdings (ASX: SNZ) trialled PainChek’s smartphone app across a select number of sites within their network of aged care facilities. Following the success of those trials, most effective for residential patients that cannot use their voice to communicate, Summerset will now roll out the app across its 24 care centres, totalling 1,150 beds.
“PainChek really made us think about how important effective pain management is for older people and a key advantage is being able to rule out pain as a contributing factor for residents who are at times distressed,” said Lynda Irvine, Head of Clinical Services at Summerset.
“The connection with VCare reduces duplication for clinical staff and means the team can spend a little more time each day with residents.”
Although PainChek does not expect the revenue generated from this partnership to be material, they are confident that it is just the start of their international expansion plans where their tech can be rapidly deployed around the world under similar trials, and conversion.
“PainChek is very excited to be partnering with one of New Zealand’s premier Care Providers,” said David Allsopp, PainChek® Head of Business Development ANZ.
“Summerset has a long history of innovation in care, with this innovation supporting their rapid growth to become the third largest Provider in the country.”
Using the app, an aged care professional is able to take a short video of the patient’s face to establish a baseline of the person’s pain threshold. Future images and video can then be compared to baseline data to identify a patient’s pain based on their facial expressions, primarily when they have little-to-no voice for communication.
For the half year ended 31 December 2021, PainChek reported $0.34m in sales revenue with the Company’s ongoing operations largely assisted by research and Government grants which totaled $1.74m.
Beyond their marketing towards aged care facilities, PainChek is also expanding their target market to include 400 million pre-verbal children around the world.
Alfred Chan is an Analyst at Emerald Financial, specialising in ASX-listed small cap companies.
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