HEALTH. The company Therappx, of Granby, promises to be the first in Canada to tackle the validation of digital health tools.
An idea that was born in 2018 in the mind of Alexandre Chagnon, CEO of Therappx. “We realized that many patients were using applications for their health in Canada and around the world.” Some are misleading, says Mr. Chagnon. He names one, which claims to measure a patient’s blood pressure when he puts his finger on the camera. “We had to find a way to validate whether the applications made sense at the clinical level. Digital health affects everyone from near or far, ”explains Mr. Chagnon.
Thérappx is launched. It first offers its services in consultation mode. The company then invested in R and D. “We started very early on in research projects to validate hypotheses. Quickly, people from Laval University and MedTek joined us. ” The government of Quebec and the National Research Council of Canada and the various CIUSSSs are in turn curious. “We are very happy with the place we have built for ourselves in the ecosystem.”
Therappx is working to bring order to the 175,000 digital health and well-being (ONS) tools available in Canada. “We have developed software that allows us to continuously monitor application updates.”
Therappx has since worked to identify, evaluate and recommend the best digital health tools available on the market. “Therappx works with nurses, psychologists, social workers, doctors and pharmacists, so that they can have reliable electronic prescription tools,” says Mr. Chagnon, a pharmacist by training.
Therappx already offers three flagship products: Core, Prescribe and Connect.
Three English-speaking products that Therappx intends to sell to our American neighbors first. “The market is much more mature in the United States. Core is practically a dictionary that provides reliable information on an application, ”explains Mr. Chagnon. Prescribe allows clinicians to prescribe a health application to their patients. And Connect makes it possible to bridge the gap between the other two products and electronic patient medical records. “We are able to collect the information that the patient provides us on the effectiveness of the application he is using.” Valuable information in the eyes of insurers and healthcare organizations.
Pilot project
The company is on the rise. She only had four pre-pandemic employees. She now employs ten. The company will launch a pilot project in a few weeks with the collaboration of the Government of Quebec.
“We will come and equip mental health professionals, whether in suicide prevention centers or the 811 line. Our products are ready.” Therappx will have to do well among some thirty companies that offer similar services. “In Canada, we are the only ones who do that”, concludes Alexandre Chagnon.
–
