The device was born out of the urge to have control of the pet’s health and catch a problem earlier than when it occurs. 
Chennai

A healthcare paw-TNER

When furry friends are sick, many pet parents have yearned for them to share details of their symptoms.

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Whenever Vivek Srinivas P returned home after a long trip, he would find his dog, Bruno sick. As a highly-bred boxer, this was a recurring occurrence and regular anxious trips to the vet’s clinic followed suit. Like most pet parents, even he could not figure out what was wrong with his companion. “Every wag of a tail, every purr, every playful bounce, it’s all a language our pets use to communicate to us. But what about when they can’t speak?,” asks startup VETiNSTANT, co-founded by Vivek.

When furry friends are sick, many pet parents have yearned for them to share details of their symptoms. To bridge this communication gap, VETiNSTANT’s ExamD allows parents to measure temperature, SPO2, heart rate, and heart and lung auscultation.

“One issue with pet dogs is they have a high threshold for pain and human beings don’t know how to read signs of pain. It seemed like a simple answer to have basic vitals in place that you can monitor. If it is a child you can touch their head, and see if it’s a fever and give them some soup.

With a dog, you can’t feel their forehead. You use rectal inserts,” says Vani Aiyer, co-founder of VETiNSTANT. As a pet parent of three furballs, the 51-year-old has seen her share of fevers, hives, and other parents struggling to diagnose their pets.

The device was born out of the urge to have control of the pet’s health and catch a problem earlier than when it occurs. This led to the creation of ExamD — a non-invasive, hand-held pet health monitoring device, that integrates with the VETiNSTANT app

Avoiding general anesthesia or other life-threatening methods, it allows pet parents to clip the hand-held device onto the pet’s ear and check vitals. “Pets are supposed to add love back into your life and not stress, so it is a counter-productive effort when you don’t know how to manage their health.

They are like family members. We have made a device that allows you to take temperature simply by cupping the ear with the nozzle of the device and getting the temperature in one to two seconds. It cuts down time, effort, and suffering for yourself and the pet,” explains Vani.

With a combination of gumption, funding, and resources, the team, including Rajkumar, product head, and Karthik, CTO, crafted the prototype and gathered suggestions and feedback from vets. They roped in medical professionals and crafted a digitised system, PAWS — where pet parents, instead of scrolling through Web MD or Reddit, could reach out to their vets.

“With the device, there is an app that connects with the SaaS solution that the vet has. He has an app version, so he has data at his fingertips. All the data goes in a click of a button to the vet. They can set up calls online or offline.” Vani says, adding that data is crucial to fill the gaps. On the vet’s side, this SaaS platform is digitised from beginning to end, with billing, consulting and stocking, and voice-to-text management.

Two years ago, at the prototype stage, they moved to the IIT-Madras incubation cell. Fast Forward to now, the product has hit the Bengaluru and Chennai markets and so far, 50+ devices have been sold. Currently catering to cats and dogs, the device — agnostic of species and location – will soon expand to other animals.

Back to its drawing board, the startup also has set sights on the international markets. It will move to capture the United States and Canada. “We want to grow brick by brick to build an organisation and healthcare network that will deliver A-class solutions for animals,” signs off Vani.

Visit: vetinstant.com

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