Israeli startup Dayzz, which is developing a sleep improvement app, has obtained a $1 million grant from the Israel Innovation Authority to conduct a pilot trial at Carmel Hospital. The grant is part of the Innovation Authority's support for digital health companies and trials of their products conducted in the Israeli health system.
The trial includes men and women in the 18-65 age bracket diagnosed as new patients with sleep disorders or breathing problems during sleep who are treated with a CPAP device for injecting air to improve breathing during sleep.
Dayzz developed a device that enables patients to "practice breathing." The term "sleep hygiene," meaning patients' behavior in sleeping, has become established in sleep medicine in recent years, including sleeping without disturbing light, managing exposure to awakening lights from television screens or a telephone in the hours before sleeping, calming exercises, neutralizing mobile communications at night, etc.
Dayzz's app monitors a user's habits in sleep and when awake in order to identify situations that can affect sleep, and in order to monitor sleep itself. The system provides the user with feedback about good and bad sleeping habits and the resulting quality of sleep. Among other things, the system monitors and recommends improvements during sleeping hours, the temperature in the room, the presence of irritating screens, nutrition (according to the user's reports), and physical activity. It also includes an element of applets that encourage calm and creating a sleep-encouraging mood. The company also employs "sleep trainers" to maintain contact with patients.
Dayzz offers the app both directly to users and to workplaces, especially those concerned about accidents and lower productivity caused by sleep problems.
The company says that the economic burden of sleep apnea in the US is estimated at $150 billion. The most effective and recommended treatment is a CPAP air pressure mask, but up to 80% of CPAP users do not persist in the treatment. Dayzz has developed a protocol that supports CPAP usage aimed at increasing adoption and persistence in usage. This is the technological element that will be tested in the current trial.
"We thank the Innovation Authority for its support for our efforts to improve our solution, which will help millions of people suffering from sleep problems," said Dayzz CEO Amir Inditzky, a former manager of technological innovation at Israel Discount Bank. "Help in financing the trial in cooperation with Carmel Hospital matches our objectives: to shorten our time-to-market and make it possible to test our technology in the real world."
Dayzz was founded in 2017 as an initiative of the Maabarot group, an Israeli leader in food supplements and medicinal food for people and animals. The company says that as part of its development of new growth engines in digital health, and following thorough research, it was decided to focus on sleep and to found Dayzz. The company's product participated in the program of Royal Philipps Netherlands for digital health startups.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 5, 2019
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