GK was afforded an opportunity to visit Mecara LLC to learn all about their efforts to bolster preventative measures in the medical field, wielding innovative AI solutions capable of measuring stress levels, conducting early diagnosis of skin conditions, and much more. Read more excerpts from our interview with the insightful Ms. Hiromi Kawamata for TIME Magazine below.
To what extent do you believe telemedicine and DX will play a role in the future of Japanese healthcare and how is Mecara LLC adapting to this?
For example, when you go to the hospital you get a prescription from the doctor, and when you do that there is a checkpoint with a pharmacist to control dosage – this system allows non-medical professionals to intervene in medical treatments. This is why I believe there is a lot of room in our system for telemedicine and why I believe it will be very crucial.
Take the example of Fukushima prefecture, during the natural disaster in 2011, the prefecture struggled with hospital beds and now after the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of beds has decreased by 50%. Still, all services in the community were able to continue running thanks to the effective operation of the medical system along with mutual collaboration among the population. I think that Fukushima is a key model when it comes to telemedicine because they are very active in introducing DX, and that is also why we are focusing on Fukushima for our own R&D.
How does your company approach the task of R&D when designing or developing specialized equipment and systems?
Some people say that after the age of AI, we are heading for the age of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) or ‘ultra-AI’. We have set our sights on AGI, meaning that we are looking for AI models that can lead human beings into previously uncharted areas where we can gain access to more valuable datasets and make the impossible possible when it comes to treating diseases. Naturally, there are hurdles or moral and ethical issues, but that is certainly the scope of our R&D moving forward.
Since we have a great strength in the development of AI, we took the initiative to solve the hardware issue associated with this field. The most difficult challenge for us was the lack of a suitable developer of hardware – we utilize AI, meaning that we needed to make several efforts to make prototypes using 3D printing. Now, we have 30,000 datasets, which I would imagine is one of the largest data sets in the world in this field. Most of the studies on the pupil by AI have been applicable to security fields, seeing use in polygraphy or detection, and only in Japan has the utilization of this tech been applied to the discovery of pre-symptomatic diseases.
Can you share more about Mecara LLC’s involvement in regional revitalization projects in Japan?
Tamura City is quite unique in terms of location. It is accessible from the airport or Koriyama City in only around 30 minutes by car. There are a lot of farmers there who hold part-time jobs and spend their spare time outside of agriculture earning more. This area was also less affected by the nuclear disaster. Along the coast in Fukushima prefecture, there are a lot of factories, though most of the labor force is dominated by male workers. I think we need real female empowerment in order to manifest true revitalization or recovery of the prefecture, and this is why we focus on female workforces within Fukushima.
The recovery of Fukushima is a synonym for the recovery of Japanese power among the population. People in the community are very supportive of our trials and there are very unique events organized there frequently involving robotics, space technology expos, or medical innovation. I believe Tamura City provides both great challenges and opportunities for a start-up company such as ourselves and it is an ideal business hub for us. We want to boost the mental health condition among communities there in collaboration with medical and academic partners within the prefecture.
