Our
journey

Health Drive Digital’s roots can be found in Virtual Ward Technologie Limited (VWT), which was created to provide an answer to the management of Cov-19.

VWT were quick to realise that with this pandemic the best treatment would be given at home early with a Virtual Platform and a means to provide rapid Oxygenation.

They were one of only a handful of companies that won through with the UK Ventilator Challenge and gained an MHRA UK Emergency Covid Approval for their novel home oxygenation Device ‘CTEX’.

Their Covid Virtual Ward Platform was also a tremendous success with Drs and Nurses, the results of which have just been published in a well-regarded peer-reviewed journal.

We realised that this system can be applied beyond that of the traditional health care model and into the realm of Occupational Health. (OH)

OH understands the health/work balance and that healthier employees are fitter, happier and more productive than their sicker counterparts.

Knowing what we know about the haulage industry and with our work with the Society of Occupational Medicine and RoSPA there is a clear and current need to improve the health and wellbeing of professional drivers. They suffer from high levels of heart disease, sleep apnoea, obesity, diabetes, stress and premature mortality.

Currently, HGV drivers have a medical assessment when applying for a D4 licence but there is no requirement to review them again until the age of 45 years old, they are then seen every five years.

Most of this assessment is based on the driver’s testimony without any objective quality data beyond an eye test and basic examination on the day usually by an independent physician who does not have access to their clinical record.

HGV drivers perform a safety-critical role and as such, they should be having regular health assessments, however, this is extremely difficult and expensive to do in today’s health care climate.

We are unique in combining leading wearable technology from Fitbit that identifies worrying health metrics with a virtual ward and OH oversight to provide a cutting edge real-time risk assessment tool that can be applied at scale.

This tool identifies illness early and provides an early opportunity for medical intervention, diagnosis, treatment and ultimately prevention of serious disease, accident and sickness absence.