MintT (Medical Intelligence Technologies) is dedicated to helping elderly people age in the best possible conditions and keep their autonomy as much as possible. It has developed ISA, a solution for detecting and preventing falls, which is already used in hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. With this solution, MintT puts artificial intelligence at the service of residents but also of care staff for the prevention of falls.

MintT was created in 2014 by Jérôme Laurent-Michel, a nurse and pain manager, Thibaud Remacle, co-founder in 2007 of Softkinetic, and Franck Casado, a signal processing engineer. In 2018, Eric Krzeslo joined the team he knows well since he co-founded Softkinetic with Thibaud Remacle, this company specialized in 3D image sensors and motion recognition software was moreover sold to the Sony group in 2015. They worked on the development of ISA (Intelligent Sensing for Ageing) before starting in 2019, the installation of this solution in the rooms of patients in Belgian hospitals and nursing homes.

A fundraising of €1.375M in 2020 allowed the start-up to accelerate the development of its solution and to pursue its installation in EHPADs and hospitals in Belgium, France and Luxembourg.

ISA, an intelligent sensor for the detection and prevention of falls

Caregivers are overworked in both hospitals and nursing homes. In Belgium, for example, there is one caregiver for every 30 beds at night. ISA was designed to improve the quality of care but also to relieve the nursing staff.

Falls are becoming more and more frequent with age, it is estimated that 70% of patients in these establishments fall at least once a year. These falls can have serious physical consequences such as fractures, which are more difficult to consolidate, but also psychological consequences due to the fear of relapsing and leading to a more rapid loss of autonomy. The consequences are also financial for the institution.

Eric Krzeslo, CEO of MintT, states:

“In an 80-bed EHPAD, 400 falls occur on average annually, 2/3 of which are not documented or simply not known. Hospitalizations, revalidation, additional workload…: the consequences of falls are real. In addition to the serious physical and psychological consequences for people who have fallen, we estimate that the time spent by medical and paramedical staff dealing with the consequences of falls in nursing homes, whether it be care, revalidation, psychological support or administrative time, represents a cost of €150,000 per year.”

A regularly updated AI-based solution

MintT launched its R&D program in 2018. Since the first version of ISA, the development of new functionalities, the improvement of its ergonomics or even the use of AI have made it possible to offer regular updates of the device.

The ISA system consists of a connected 3D sensor installed in the patient’s room, which relies on AI, analysis algorithms and Cloud applications.

In June 2021, the company announced a partnership with Microsoft that will enable it to use Microsoft’s “Time of Flight” 3D sensor and Azure cloud platform.

Eric Krzeslo stated at the time:

“Microsoft’s Azure Depth platform… will allow us to strengthen our sustainable and repeatable business model for the direct benefit of our customers and their patients: teaching hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and assisted living facilities.”

The start-up now has unique expertise on the circumstances in which falls occur: no less than 500,000 hours of capture and thousands of cases feed the algorithm. The system can be used on a touchscreen and mobile app, or even integrated into existing systems.

MintT believes that ” this data is of great value in order to optimize the management of healthcare budgets and improve the personalization of care.”

In addition, it offers training to caregivers when installing the ISA system on fall prevention.

Translated from Focus sur MintT, start-up médicale belge qui ambitionne l’international