An Irish developer of a hand-hygiene innovation for hospitals lands a German distributor with help from the Enterprise Europe Network.
Surgeons around the world are required to wash their hands a certain way before operating, but how can they be 100% sure they are doing everything right?
Two Irish entrepreneurs have developed a novel solution called SureWash: an interactive video system for training and assessing washing techniques against international hygiene protocol, in real time. "Human-to-human training can be costly and inconsistent," explains Sean Bay, who co-founded Glanta Ltd. in 2010 with Gerard Lacey. "Our system requires the correct outcome every time."
For help marketing their innovation through the Enterprise Europe Network, they turned to Jan Gerritsen in Enterprise Ireland, one of 3,000 Network experts worldwide giving free support to SMEs. He invited Glanta to the healthcare brokerage event at the Medica trade fair in Düsseldorf, Germany organised by German Network partner ZENIT GmbH and experts in the Network's Healthcare Sector Group. Sector Groups established within the Network provide businesses with specialist support in a particular sector.
"We identify the right partners well in advance," says Simone Strathoff of ZENIT, who arranged a meeting between Glanta and one of ZENIT's longstanding clients: Kreienbaum Neoscience GmbH, an SME supplying medical equipment to hospitals, pharmacies and the home-care market.
The companies clicked right away, and Kreienbaum is now marketing SureWash to hospitals in Germany. "Thanks to the Network, we found an international business partner for the long term," says Ralf Oestreich, Kreienbaum's key account manager for hygiene.