Hypertension is the leading cause of cardiovascular diseases. It is also a highly modifiable risk factor if treated on time and monitored well. Machine learning (ML) models have proven to be very effective in helping manage hypertension and have been known to outperform other traditional statistical tools. Humphrey Kanyoke, the CEO of MediTrak Life talks about his journey and the path that led him to develop innovative ML-based solutions to tackle hypertension. Kanyoke's story also highlights what is possible when high-level public health knowledge and experience are merged with business acumen, drive, and principles.
"I was a public health researcher in Africa for many years, overseeing various aspects of public health research studies involving tens of thousands of study participants," he says. "Some of these included maternal health studies sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; studies which exposed me to the devastating effects of high blood pressure in pregnant women (preeclampsia). My interest in the condition originated from there. And then it intensified into a singular goal to help eliminate when my dad passed away from cardiac complications brought on by his hypertension."
It was while pursuing an MBA at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN that Kanyoke founded MediTrak Life to actualize his vision of developing global scale solutions to combat hypertension. Almost 6 years later, and after more than $500,000 in funding from investors including Elevate Ventures, an exclusive IP license with the Purdue Research Foundation, several awards, and collaborations with leading researchers, MediTrak Life has deployed its premier hypertension management tool, Zeus.
Zeus is an ML-based predictive blood pressure management tool that allows physicians to curate personalized treatment plans for patients. Zeus is currently being used to treat patients at various hospitals and medical centers in Texas and Indiana, including IU Health.
"We basically asked ourselves a series of questions when we looked to conceptualize our approach: is it possible to granularize the broad, often cited causes of hypertension? Is it possible to turn these granularized causes into data points that can be quantified, monitored, and tracked? Is it possible to rank and prioritize the highest impacting causes of any individual's high bp? Is it possible to predict bp outcomes based on modifying these tracked behavior-based data points?"
The early outcomes have been incredibly encouraging. Zeus is enabling more home monitoring, which is one of the key recommendations from various bodies including the World Health Organization. It's also allowing for more data capture and sharing between patients and physicians, and most importantly, it's helping patients achieve and maintain health blood pressure through behavior change. Behavior changes approaches to managing chronic conditions tend to be more reliable since they are more sustainable and come with little to none of the side effects that drug-based solutions come with. Traditionally, the challenge to those solutions has always been difficulties with adoption and adherence. And that is one of the key advantages of Zeus, because it was designed and built to allow the patient to live with and see their data in real time, thus making it easier to match effort with results.
What does the future hold for Zeus and MediTrak Life in general? "I've always had this vision where we are not only able to predict specific outcomes before deploying solutions to diseases but can actually predict the onset of the disease in the first place. That is our long-term goal. In the meantime, we are really happy with the early impact of Zeus and will continue to onboard more facilities, physicians, and patients."
