Ep 36 Preventure starts health and safety wearable technology to prevent worker accidents

TRANSCRIPT

Brendan Torazzi
This is a Sydney video production Welcome to Episode 36 of the Australian Health and Safety Business Podcast. I'm Brendan Torazzi, the host of a show and today I'm joined with Scott Komen for Provencher live. Is it provincial live or just provincial? The business,

Unknown Speaker
the company's provincial, provincial dot live? Yeah, that's what we do. I suppose we collect data live. So we've rolled with that.

Brendan Torazzi
Fantastic. And so just before we started recording, you were saying that you've you've only just recently come back from the states where you were launched, it was a marching preventer, or you were building it up or tell us a bit about what you're up to?

Unknown Speaker
Well, all of the above, really, so I went, I got offered a spot in an accelerator program over there, which was basically to, for companies who have traction have a good idea, a good idea and a good product and want to take it to the world. And so this American accelerator brought us in. So I spent three months or four months in the Bay Area, meeting investors, but also getting my head around the US OHS environment and legislation and and getting females underway. And we actually had a trial lined up with the Denver City firefighters, which was really exciting. And then and then COVID hit and so I pulled up stumps and got out of there as quick as possible, because I can see the writing on the wall. Yeah, thank God we did. We got back. And they were riding out the storm in Sydney and and still getting the prime men were actually taking this opportunity to build new features. Yeah, so it's, it's been do a bit, do a bit

Brendan Torazzi
of housekeeping while you've got some extra time to do the things that you're not normally doing.

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So just,

Brendan Torazzi
curiously, what was the name of the accelerator program?

Unknown Speaker
It was called launch launch. Yeah, Jason Calacanis, who's a bit of a he's he calls himself the Lebron James of angel investing. So that is, yeah.

Brendan Torazzi
So is there a cost involved to get involved with a program like that? Or how does that happen? How do they recruit, you know, new startups and that sort of thing.

Unknown Speaker
They're always looking and reached out to me, first of all, to be involved. They had a launch with in combination with New South Wales government, they had what they called Launch fest, Sydney, in July last year. So they reached out to me to be a part of that, because I wanted startups up on stage and pitching and all that sort of thing. And then off the back of that, they said, Well, yeah, you're good enough to come over to the US and join our accelerator. Yeah. That involved 100% 100k investment as well. So they invested in the company, and

Brendan Torazzi
they're really putting their money where their mouth is just meeting. So I think you've got a good idea that the funding needs to come on over and try and get it started.

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But I mean, accelerators over there are a numbers game. So they go for every 100. Every 100 startups, one might be what they call a unicorn. And that's just how they play the game. So we obviously fit their criteria, and we're one of the 100. And hopefully, we'll be the one unicorn.

Brendan Torazzi
Fantastic. So I think we'd better rewind a little bit and just tell everybody what provincia does, like, what's your what is your technology?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, or how I even got to be here speaking to you today. Yeah,

Brendan Torazzi
for sure. We'll give us a quick overview of the technology. And then we'll we'll rewind a bit further and, and see your background and how you got into it.

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah, perfect. So So basically, we use wearable technology and data analysis to prevent workplace injury. So at the end of the day, you know, five years ago, when I entered the health and safety space, I noticed that there was the majority of injury prevention involved observation and opinion. And I was coming from an elite sports background where at least sports physio background where injuries were prevented using data, observation and opinion formed a small piece of the puzzle years, whereas health and safety, were you protecting the lives of individuals and their ability to support their families. There was minimal data, it was a lot of observation, opinion and subjective information are behind those programs. So so we started using there was a couple of wearable devices in the workplace at the time, but they were too expensive. The data that came from them while I loved him being a science nerd. The health and safety community couldn't use it. So I worked in house for AON for a while to understand the needs of the stakeholders and that that enabled me to get the knowledge and get the team to build what we have now, which is basically two small sensors, one that sits on the upper back to identify a lower back injury risk. And another one that sits on the upper arm of the worker to identify shoulder injury risk because we know they're the most expensive have the most frequent musculoskeletal injuries, but they're also the most likely to re injure. So. So yeah, that's how we sort of got to where we are now. And now the goal is to make it as cost effective as possible. So we're constantly refining it to, to hopefully get it to the point where every employer can afford it, whether they're just a local mechanic all the way through multi multinational mining companies, and, and everyone in between.

Brendan Torazzi
So it's different, because as you're explaining the technology, I'm thinking, why couldn't you just put it on an iPhone, but I guess you're not gonna get the contour movement of the body is that is that the idea of the sensors?

Unknown Speaker
You Exactly. And early on, we were using what we call the data gateway. So the sensors would send information to a little device on the workers belt, and then that would then send it to the cloud for analysis, we found that the workers were were feeling like their movements were being measured, and the data was just being sent to the boss. So that's where we incorporated the smartphone. That's where like you say, the iPhone and the Android phones, a little computers. So that's where we built an app. So the data goes to the app, the worker feels like they have control because it's their add to it phone. Yeah, it's their, it's their app that they've signed into. So it's their account, the data goes to them, okay, decided to de identify it. But at the end of the day, we're trying to improve the lives of the worker. So if the worker has the account, they get the information and they benefit from it. That's what we want at the end of the day.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. So it helps it helps, like on an individual basis, but then it's a bit like a lot of the software providers, where you know, if there's a bug you can choose to send the data does is that I mean, that's a bit of a simplistic view. But is that sort of what happens? So yeah, we've had to get how do you get the big data to help companies? I guess?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So that's where the dashboards at all the data goes into the database, where we the algorithms are used to provide high level information for the employers. And this is early on. Today on I was doing really detailed analysis, because that's what the athletes needed. That's what the coaches and the sports teams needed. And so I remember the very first, the very first report I delivered was for a large Australian healthcare provider. And I remember delivering these results, thinking this is going to knock their socks off, I this is the greatest thing ever, because this is what coaches love. And here's what athletes love. And at the end of it, they all just looked at it and said, Well, this is a waste of money. This is a waste of time this is we don't understand any of it. So point I just had to. And it's been a five year journey of just tweaked it and then got feedback and simplified it and got it to the point now, where there's a dashboard where someone can log in and straightaway see which tasks have a high risk and what can be done about it, and which individual workers have a high injury risk and what they end up, then they can put their effort into reducing that risk for those tools.

Brendan Torazzi
So if I'm a user, am I gonna notice the sensors on me? Like, are you? Are you conscious of that error? Or is it one of those things that it's a bit like wearing a watch, and you forget about it overtime?

Unknown Speaker
Well, there is a way actually, yeah, a lot of a lot of the workers who do wear it end up forgetting to take them off at the end of the day. So yeah, you do, you don't notice them when they're on yeah, there is an alert so you can set or you can set the app to provide alerts. So back for return to work. If an injured worker is returning to their full duties, they can get an alert when they move in a way that's a high injury risk or a high load. Same thing. We're trying we're building now a manual handling training program, where worker where's the sensors for five days, two days, like a baseline period where we just collect data, and that did, what training modules they receive. But then also the end, the second half of the week, they receive alerts and the reason or the purpose being the alerts prompt them to stop, think about what they're doing, think about the training modules they've done, and then move in a way that reduces the injury risk. So that's the change model that we've created.

Brendan Torazzi
That sounds really cool. So have you got if you've got Australian companies out there using it at the moment?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So we launched we launched the actual product may last year was that was two basic features one, which is a task assessment where a health and safety professional will put the sensors on a worker and then use their smartphone to collect the data and collect video. So that's used for training that's used for task assessments to see whether tasks can be reviewed to reduce the risk. The second feature is the movement coach feature which I just explained where workers can get feedback through their phone throughout their shift.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. And so you were saying that you're a physio and involve like a sports physio. What made you take that next step? Like yeah, did you say you have a 15 year career in sports physio before you Some of this,

Unknown Speaker
yeah, well, I had a seven year uni degree uni career, first of all, so I did sports science, focusing more on movement analysis and biomechanics and the physics and, and then on to do physio as well. And then off the back of that the focus was always movement analysis for injury prevention with athletes. So at the end of the day, if you can measure the demands of the sports, whether it be the training load, or the competitive load, measure the capacity of the athlete to withstand those demands, if the equal the athlete shouldn't get injured. So there's so much research showing that all you got to do is measure the capacity of the athlete the demands of what they're doing. And if it's matched, they don't get injured. And so that so I did that for 15 years with Queensland Academy of sport I was at the is in Canberra for a while, athletics Australia, I was where I finished up, I did some work with rowing as well. But in the end, what I realized was an injury sustained by my mother who was working as a nurse that opened my eyes to the lack of data used or the the lack of effective injury prevention programs in the workplace. So she was a nurse, her injury prevention program was a safe lifting manual that she was showing when she started 20 years prior. And there she is, as a 60, odd year old lifting a patient who had fallen on the ground, and she ended up having to have seven levels of a spine fused. And so seeing how the input, or the the financial, the emotional, the physical impact of that injury on her and our family, I just saw, well look, while I'm having a pretty big impact on these athletes. It's not, it's not really doing something good for the greater community. There's so many. They're going through what we went through. So I thought, well, it's pretty easy to transition the technology and the knowledge and the method used to predict athletes, it's easy to transition that across to the workplace. And that's, that's what we've done.

Brendan Torazzi
Now you keep saying, Wait, is there another another business partner involved? Or is it you and your team? What's the structure of your provincial?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I wish there was a partner, but it's me sort of behind it all I've got, we've got two software developers who are brilliant, they I don't understand what they do the black screen colored writing, but they make magic happen behind the for the app and the dashboard. And then I've got our client engagement team. So they're the ones who are out there, making sure that everyone using it is using it to the best ability, but also getting feedback. We never from day one, we never wanted to just build a product and throw it out there and make money. We wanted to build a solution. And if we don't listen to the people using it and keep refining what we're doing, then we're not you know, we're wasting our time. So and that's, and that's why our investors have backed us because we're not just out there trying to to, like I said before, you know, in America when I was over there, it's all just people, entrepreneurs trying to make a startup and become millionaires and just walk away. And they're the ones who aren't passionate about the cause and passionate about the solution. And so for us, as soon as we got out there, people saw how we were trying to solve a problem in a in a unique way, using technology. And that's where the backing is. And that's also why a lot of companies are are also trusting us to do implement our technology with their work. It's

Brendan Torazzi
a bit of a bit of a random question. You might not know the answer straight off the top of your straightaway. But do you know what it costs companies like say if you have an injured worker, like you're talking about your mom, and you know, in the health care system, and she gets injured, and she's out of work, any idea what it costs companies when that happens? Because obviously there's the emotional cost for the family and all of that. But what's the hard cost? Or the soft costs for businesses when we're there?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, the direct costs, according to the latest stats from WorkCover, and WorkSafe, and government, it's 30 to 35k per musculoskeletal injury. So that's a mental health that's your backs and shoulders and knees and ankles. And that's it. So 35k, but that's the direct cost. The indirect cost is huge. You know, like you say, there's the impact to the individual worker, the likelihood of injury. And so it's Yeah, but the thing that frustrates me the most is muscular skeletal injuries. 100% avoidable. If they're managed, if you like I said before, if you measure the demands of the tasks, the capacity of the worker to perform the tasks, they shouldn't get injured. There's always accidents and slips, trips and falls and that sort of thing, but your repetitive loading and your body stressing injuries should never happen. And that's what we're trying. We're trying to get rid of those bodies stressing injuries.

Brendan Torazzi
And so do you find that companies are typically calling you up? What after they've had a an accident or an injury or are there or is it a balance of people being preventative? versus reactive?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, usually pretty much every company that's using our technology has known about the problem for a long time and has tried other solutions that have failed. So musculoskelet direct costs have been a burden for a while. And they've been looking for solutions. I've tried different training, different injury prevention techniques, and different having physios on site, and, and all these other quite expensive and costly ways of trying to prevent injuries. So they've reached out to us and say, Well, come on, let's see what you can do. Let's see if you can nology to help us and, and they've all been quite quite surprised at, first of all, how effective it is. But secondly, how cost effective it is as well.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. So how long does the program typically go for?

Unknown Speaker
Well, we try to keep it going on ongoing, definitely, yeah, yeah. Once the workers have the app on their phone, you can send safety information to them and safety training modules and refreshes in send that through constantly, so once a month or once every two months. But then once a year, or once every six months, we're finding the workers were the sensors for five days in a row. And that way, they get their manual handling training over those five days. But also the data collected is perfect for monitoring them over time. And they can see if, over time they are their physical capacity is decreasing with age, and they whether they need more, more support.

Brendan Torazzi
And if you got any, like, I don't know how you would measure the results. But have you ever done any case studies or

Unknown Speaker
research, we've got a lot of short term case studies on tasks, assessments and evaluations, that, for example, Melbourne Airport, they SafeWork gave them a breach notice in the back room for a manual for hazardous manual handling for the the baggage handlers. And they basically said you need to put in a manual handling aid to reduce the physical load on the baggage handlers. And so they installed a bunch of different devices. And they brought us in to collect data from the workers using all the different devices, first of all, to see what the physical demands were per bag. But then when he suggested Why don't we collect data over five hours and see what that goes. And what it did show was that over five hours, the most efficient way to move bags was the way they're doing it, simply grabbing them and throwing them because the workers had been accustomed to that, when they start using different pieces of equipment, it introduced all of these different loads. So while there was a vacuum lifter, for example, so the vacuum lifter, reduces the vertical gravity or reduces the weight of the bag, but all of a sudden, the workers were getting stiff wrists and stiff elbow because of the use of the machine that was the handles that you had to pull your head to lift the machine up above higher than you would normally. And so. So collecting data enables those insights, especially over five hour period. That was that was a really good case study. So in the end, Melbourne Airport stuck with the current baggage room, the workers were happy as well, they didn't want to use all of these other devices that took longer and an increased stress and strain in other areas. So that was a good one. And there's been other ones. Yeah, one warehouse. This was a long time ago, one warehouse introduced safety knives. To prevent workers from getting cuts, what they found was these knives were getting caught on the cardboard. So all of a sudden, while they weren't the risk of cuts wasn't the case anymore. There was all this arm jarring because these getting bored. So wrist, elbow, shoulder injuries were the injury risk had increased. So once we showed the data, they went back to normal knives and said, you know, basically be more careful to avoid cuts, rather than use safety knives and put load on your wrists and ankles, wrists and elbows and shoulders.

Brendan Torazzi
That's really cool. That's really cool. So the business model is they the customers pay like a monthly subscription fee, or is it a per user fee? Or how does all that work?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, we have an initial setup fee now to help compile safety training data. So with you we found early on, we're trying to build a platform that enabled people to do it themselves. But in the end, we've decided that people want what we haven't decided people have said they want that sports science expertise on top of it, they want that extra layer of knowledge and data analysis. And so we have an initial setup costs to to put together the training packages and to put together reports, but then it's $5 per worker or a maximum of $5 per worker per month, but it goes down to almost $2.50 per worker per month, depending on the size of the organization.

Brendan Torazzi
All right. Well, that's that's really affordable when you think about what it's going to cost if you have one injury. Yeah, exactly. Sounds too good, good return on investment.

Unknown Speaker
And that's why that's why people are opening their doors to us because there's unfortunately health and safety by They're always quite tired. And so if they can get as much as possible for their limited budget, then they're happy.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, for sure. So we're, what's the plans from here? So obviously, we're paused a bit at the moment with, with COVID, and borders, closing and all of that. Where are you going to take preventer in the sort of very short term future?

Unknown Speaker
At the moment, like I said, we're building new features where we're constantly refining what we've got. But the goal is still to get over to the US get some investment there and launch on a bigger scale, and grow over because like I said, at the end of the day, we want to try to protect as many workers as possible. And the best way to do that is unfortunately, to go over to the US get some US investment, and then and then grow, get a bigger team and get the sensors on as many workers as possible. So is the investment

Brendan Torazzi
for mainly for, like sales and marketing? Or is it? Is it actually investment for improving the technology? Or is it a combo of both?

Unknown Speaker
It's come about both. So we want to get research base partnerships. So we want to get some affiliations with universities, we've already done some work with University of Canberra to validate what we've got now, but we want to have a long term relationship with a with a university for trialing new products, refining the technology. We want to have connections with sporting bodies, so that we can actually have sports based ambassadors, because we know a lot of blue collar workers, they love their sport. And if an athlete, especially here in America, one of the first things I learned over there is if an athlete tells someone to do it, then nine times out of 10. They, they listen and they do it. And so if we're trying to reduce injury risk in the workplace and these athletes promoting it, then it's more likely that there's going to be bigger engagement. So there's that sort of component as well. But yeah, but it's mostly sort of building out the the engagement sales marketing teams.

Brendan Torazzi
And is this your first foray into business? Like your own business?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, pretty much I had a small physio practice on the Gold Coast for five years, worked sort of in combination with private practice and at the Queensland Academy of sport. And that was alright, it was, again, the business side of things don't enjoy so much. It's just for that, in that particular situation. I just love treating the patient. So I had a business coach do a lot of the a lot of the business growth sides of things. Now, I've been thrown right in the thick of things and I'm starting to enjoy I'm listening to a lot of podcasts, business, entrepreneur podcasts, business growth, podcasts and learning blending very quickly. But I mean, it's funny at the end of the day like with, with business, you've just got to build what the customers need. I remember early on, I actually when I went to, I met with a really well known director, she she was from a marketing background, and she was like a director on page of companies like net, net RMA. And, and I said, I've got to learn to be a salesperson. And he sort of said to me, well hang on. What do you do as a physio, if someone walks in to the practice? Do you say right? Before you say anything, I've got the best shoulder treatment view, you're going to love the shoulder treatment come in, and we're going to give you the shoulder. You're going to be so happy. Yeah, you don't you wait. You listen, you ask what their problem is. And then you use what you've got to solve their problem. Yeah. And so I've just taken that to this business as well. What are all the problems we're trying to solve? Let's use what we've got to solve these problems. And for all the stakeholders, well, not not just the employer, not just the worker, but the insurer, the government, the some there's a lot of stakeholders in workplace injury prevention.

Brendan Torazzi
Absolutely. Okay, Scott. Well, we're going to wrap up the interview. Now, I've just got five short questions to ask you. First of all, how old are you?

Unknown Speaker
I'm 44. But I feel about 64.

Brendan Torazzi
Okay, and then how many hours sleep you can get tonight? That might be might be one of the reasons

Unknown Speaker
that I made sure I get seven hours sleep every night. Because the back from the when I was doing a lot of rowing and triathlon, I realized pretty quickly. Don't let your body recover, then you can perform mentally, physically.

Brendan Torazzi
And then what do you like to do to keep it?

Unknown Speaker
The moment I surf, it keeps me sane. I mean, I've got a background in Ironman Triathlon, but that just takes up way too tight, too much time. And actually, I'm to be honest, to be running a business and an entrepreneur and even in the health and safety space. You got to put all your effort in to make it to make a difference. Like at work, though, all my time and efforts gone into that and I serve to keep saying and play with the kids.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. And then do you have any personal goals you're looking to achieve in the next 12 months?

Unknown Speaker
The next 12 months personal goals Yeah, I'd say it would be to get that serious traction in the US. I mean, it's unfortunately, my personal goals are my business goals. And that's just, unfortunately the way it is at the moment. But yeah, try, obviously, to serve more. But that's going to help me achieve the business goal, because it's better for the mind and soul and body.

Brendan Torazzi
And then finally, if he could be remembered for one thing in business, what would your legacy piece be?

Unknown Speaker
I like the company to be remembered not me personally. So I'd like the company to be remembered as the one company that really took technology to the workplace to have a real impact on the workers lives.

Brendan Torazzi
Oh, that's brilliant. And finally, if people want to find out a little bit more about provincial What's your website

if you guys got Sorry, I just cut out a little bit then.

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, now A call came through. So better.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, just what's your website name?

Unknown Speaker
provincia dot live.

Brendan Torazzi
Fantastic. All right, Scott. Thanks very much for coming on the show today.

Unknown Speaker
Brenda, thank you so much for having me. I had fun