Smart sensing for seniors: Alphind’s Xealei tackles the global aging challenge

FAST COMPANY EXECUTIVE BOARD INTERVIEW WITH EZ BALA, FOUNDER & CEO, THE ALPHIND GROUP - The world is getting older. By 2050, the World Health Organization estimates that “the proportion of the world’s population over 60 years will nearly double from 12% to 22%.” This is a particular concern in Asia, where the population aged 65 and over is projected to rise to 1.2 billion people by 2060, which will lead to skyrocketing healthcare costs.

That’s why EZ Bala, CEO of Alphind Healthcare, wanted to bring the company’s groundbreaking Xealei motion sensing and alerting software platform to market. “We want to help people age in place comfortably with a good standard of living,” he says. “The way we do that is by elevating device care intelligence.”

INTELLIGENT MONITORING

Launched in 2023, Xealei is a proprietary smart monitoring platform that integrates with motion-sensing devices to offer continuous oversight of resident activity. An unobtrusive and privacy-protected alternative to video cameras and wearable technology, Xealei helps people age in place safely and independently.

Using remote sensors and intelligent alerting, it helps staff continuously monitor and respond to potentially risky behaviors such as falls, extended periods of inactivity, or residents leaving occupancy zones. This increases the efficiency and effectiveness of your caregiving teams at residential care organizations such as age-in-place and assisted living facilities, detox rehabilitation centers, and long-term care facilities

Xealei also provides a streamlined, intelligent workflow to track and report events and helps in mitigating risks using whole-person risk scoring and prediction. This frees staff and caregivers from having to check on residents in person 24/7, easing their workflow and leading to higher retention rates.

While potentially reducing hospitalizations and costs associated with patient falls, Xealei ensures compliance with organizations’ guidelines and regulatory requirements. Most of all, Bala says, “It offers peace of mind to seniors, their family members, and loved ones by naturally improving residents’ safety and quality of life.”

MARKET INNOVATION

Alphind started developing Xealei in 2019, so COVID-19 was the first of a number of challenges they encountered. Although they initially looked into hardware such as video cameras, these quickly led to concerns about privacy. “We tried quite a few different things,” Bala says. “Despite the sunk investment in first-gen hardware, we decided to go with the contactless, imageless technology.”

Convincing healthcare organizations to give the product a try came next. “You know they’re craving these solutions, but they’re still hesitant to try new things,” Bala says. “It was a little challenging to help them understand how this product can help with risk mitigation, which is the biggest value proposition with this technology.”

Despite these hurdles, Xealei went live in October 2023. Its first customer, a North Carolina-based organization that provides comprehensive services to individuals with autism, has been very satisfied with it so far, Bala says. Xealei has been deployed with several other customers since then and has already accurately detected dozens of falls enabling near-instant attention by caregivers.

Xealei also helped Alphind earn a prestigious spot as a finalist for Innovation of the Year in the smart care technology category in the 2024 Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards. Alphind is now expanding the product’s capabilities to expand the scope of motion events and patterns. They are establishing a Singapore office to target the broader Asia-Pacific market and have plans to enter the European market soon.

Bala says Xealei fits perfectly within Alphind’s holistic, customer-centric mindset that encompasses all aspects of patient health proactively and comprehensively. “The strategy and challenge was always to stay true to our vision: activating intelligence for whole-person healthcare,” he says.