This startup is making a difference. They will save lives !
ActiveProtective is a ground floor startup in downtown Philly, just got their series A funding and starting their first pilot this week. AP is trying to solve the coming epidemic of fragility hip fractures as the baby boomers move into their 8th decade. When an elderly person falls and breaks their hip, they have a 25% chance of dying within a year [the facts].
AP has developed a wearable belt device that deploys an airbag when a fall is detected to help prevent hip fractures in older adults. They are focusing on a consumer play in the personal safety category (translation – no FDA). Huuuuuge market, small team, and just getting started. One of my favorite startups.
ActiveProtective was founded on the simple belief that hip fractures among older adults, and their devastating consequences, could be prevented through use of wearable technology.
Dr. Robert F. Buckman spent much of his career as Professor of Trauma at Temple University, and running one of the busiest trauma centers in Pennsylvania. He is a lifelong medical innovator with 15 patents to his name, and is the author of over 100 publications in the field of trauma. Upon becoming Director of Trauma at St. Mary’s hospital in Langhorne, PA, he became acutely aware of the shift in age demographic of his patient population, the types of injuries sustained, and quickly identified the most devastating ones. It was there that he recognized an enormous, solvable healthcare crisis facing Emergency Centers throughout the world – it is the frail, independent elderly falling down and breaking their hips, and the subsequent fight of their lives to recover from that fall injury. Most do not recover.
