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FluidAI Medical’s breakthrough smart technology is enabling patients to avoid life-threatening complications after surgery, speed up recovery times and reduce hospital readmissions
As calls grow for a Canadian action plan to address sepsis – a life-threatening emergency caused by infection and a leading cause of death worldwide – an innovative Kitchener-based MedTech company is on a mission to transform the way patients recover after surgery, reducing their chance of life-threatening infection, speeding recovery and ultimately, saving lives.
FluidAI Medical has launched a groundbreaking intelligent risk analysis platform that can flag early on a broad range of post-operative complications, including sepsis, deep vein thrombosis, respiratory failure, bleeding, pulmonary embolism, pneumonia and more.
Called Stream Care, the platform incorporates data from patient records, continuous vital sign monitors, wearable sensors and other medical devices to provide advanced risk assessments following colorectal surgery, bariatric surgery and surgery to treat benign and malignant diseases of the liver, pancreas, gallbladder and bile duct. It includes a digital companion app for patients so they can learn more about their surgical procedure, report symptoms while recovering on a hospital ward or at home, and track medication compliance or dietary issues that may impact their recovery. The technology also integrates with electronic health record systems to give clinicians a unified view of all relative patient information, highlighting critical values.
“We’re ushering in a new era of intelligent recovery, where post-operative patient care becomes proactive rather than reactive,” said Dr. Mustafa Obeidat, Medical Advisor at FluidAI.
Stream Care builds on FluidAI’s flagship product, Origin, originally launched in 2022. Origin is a first-of-its-kind patient monitoring system for early detection of anastomotic leaks in surgical drains, indicating a surgical connection hasn’t healed properly, which can lead to life-threatening infection. The device connects between the tubing and the drain reservoir, using nanosensors and AI analytics to monitor the surgical drainage for changes in acidity (pH) and conductivity, both of which alert to a leak long before a patient would experience symptoms like fever, rapid heartbeat or vomiting, meaning clinicians can intervene before a more severe complication results.
By expanding focus from hardware to software with the company’s new intelligent platform, Obeidat explained that “instead of just catching leaks, we want to catch everything else that can go wrong.” He explained that care teams can use Stream Care as a companion to Origin or standalone, with the ability to monitor more than 50 validated risk scores as well as their own custom risk scores.
Founded by three students – two from the University of Waterloo and one from Toronto Metropolitan University – and currently numbering 80 employees, FluidAI owes its success in good part to Mitacs, a leading innovation organization that connects businesses and researchers to drive collaboration, deploy skilled talent, and build innovation capacity to strengthen Canada’s productivity and global competitiveness.
Mitacs funding, along with support from the university, helped the team rapidly scale their technology from lab to market and deploy several clinical trials in Canada and globally, including a recent project with Providence Health Care in B.C. which is using the innovative system to remotely monitor patients recovering at home. Since its inception, the company has hired 15 Mitacs student researchers with one accepting a full-time position.
Now, as they look to expand in the U.S., the company continues to tap into the cutting-edge expertise of Mitacs interns to advance their research and development effort. University of Guelph fourth-year biomedical engineering student Mya Simpson just completed an eight-month internship, for example, where she was instrumental in setting up the precision testing required to secure FDA 510K clearance for Origin as a continuous pH monitor for early detection of post-surgical leaks.
“I learned about the regulatory approval process, and the science and technical work required to support that. It took a lot of trial and error and multiple iterations to get the data we needed to present our device properly and accurately to the FDA,” said Simpson, who credits Mitacs for the “super cool” experience.
“The opportunity to work at a startup is rarely possible without funding support,” she said. “FluidAI gave me so much trust, autonomy and authority, it was an experience I wouldn’t necessarily have had with a larger company and Mitacs made it possible.”
According to Mitacs CEO Stephen Lucas, “Mitacs places top-tier talent in Canadian firms, especially SMEs, to support industry-academia collaboration. This helps unlock innovation potential, de-risk R&D for firms, and build lasting academic-industry relationships. Our national reach, international connections, and ability to broker cross-sectoral partnerships allow us to deliver results at scale, helping Canadian businesses compete globally while developing the next generation of a skilled and innovative workforce.”
On average, eight percent of patients who undergo a gastrointestinal procedure will experience a leak, and the mortality rate for those who do is one and six. FluidAI Medical is not only working to improve those outcomes, but is also helping to reduce wait times for critical surgeries by allowing patients who are at low risk of complication to be safely discharged sooner.
“The idea is that we want to hold a patient’s hand from when they first meet the surgeon, through preparing for their procedure to their recovery on the ward or at home,” said Obeidat.
About Mitacs
As a leading Canadian innovation organization, Mitacs connects businesses and researchers with unrivalled access to talent, financial support, and the partnerships needed to turn ideas into impactful innovations. Through unique collaborations, Mitacs is driving productivity and positioning Canada as a global innovation leader. Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Yukon.
Source: Mitacs
