TryCycle Data Systems is an Internet of Things (IoT) software and engagement platform engineered to help clinicians stay connected to their patients in treatment for addiction or substance use disorders. Headquartered in Ottawa, the company was incorporated in 2017, and has two other offices in Toronto and the U.S. TryCycle develops and supports clinician-focused software systems, to address the growing epidemic of substance use, addiction and mental health. The company has started testing their digital health platform on the CENGN infrastructure to gain insight on system performance variables and evaluate enhanced cloud services and capabilities.

Reducing the Burden on the Health Care Industry

Overdose has become a leading cause of accidental death in North America, with opioid addiction driving the epidemic. From 2001 to 2017, the economic toll of the opioid crisis is estimated to have topped $1 trillion. The field of addiction medicine and recovery has become broken and uncoordinated. Doctors, therapists, recovery coaches, courts and law enforcement officials need help to keep patients with substance use disorders in treatment and in recovery. This is where TryCycle can help; reducing the burden on existing health resources with a digital early warning system for health care providers.

The ability to gather patient data and insights in real-time, can help improve our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of addiction, keeping patients in treatment and recovery longer, as well as supporting clinicians in their efforts to provide more personalized and proactive medicine.

Making the Digital Connection Between Patients and Health-Care Providers

TryCycle’s connected health platform combines real-time risk assessments and analytics to build a digital connection between opt-in patients and their healthcare / health response team.  The solution can increase patient engagement in treatment, improve communication and enable data-driven clinical actions in-between face-to-face appointments.

TryCycle’s platform takes the form of a connected, cloud-based application for both patient and clinician.  Patients utilize a mobile application with automated prompts and reminders, to submit a daily self-assessment, encouraging a regular connection and increasing opportunities for clinical dialogue. While using the app, patients may also chose to include a personal diary note with specific details about their current mood, state, or day to day stresses that could be affecting their health.  Patient inputs are analyzed and processed in real-time using proprietary algorithms to identify changes in the patient’s stress, cravings, triggers, and behaviours. This analysis provides unique ‘point-in time’ snapshots and long-term insights into a patient’s history, symptoms, and health patterns. When measurable changes in the patient’s baseline are detected, TryCycle’s risk stratification and automated alerting system is triggered to enable actionable clinical interventions.

TryCycle Leverages a CENGN IoT Project

TryCycle has started a CENGN project to ensure system speed, accuracy and reliability continues to operate as expected before going to market with large-scale deployments. Additionally, they are utilizing CENGN’s commercial-grade infrastructure and technical expertise to scale test their solution at 20,000 mobile devices, providing TryCycle with an understanding of the system resource requirements as the number of software licenses are increased.

TryCycle’s project will be deployed in a cloud tenancy environment and will consist of multiple containers running Docker to ensure the TryCycle platform can be deployed in a containerized environment. TryCycle will be provided three virtual machines including a JMeter VM to generate traffic and simulate 20,000 machines for load testing, an Object Storage VM to run administration applications, and a PostgreSQL Database VM to monitor system performance during testing.

On the Path to Commercial Growth and Securing Large-Scale Customers

The CENGN team is excited to be providing TryCycle with our infrastructure services. With these resources, TryCycle will be positioned to secure large-scale customer opportunities and receive a stable platform to test while they evaluate cloud-based service enhancements. CENGN is supplying the necessary resources for TryCycle to perform on a stable OpenStack platform. CENGN’s containerization, virtualization, and JMeter expertise and experience will also provide TryCycle with new and insightful knowledge to further develop capabilities outside of the CENGN project.

TryCycle is a growing Canadian business that is using the services at CENGN through the Next Generation Network Program (NGNP). The NGNP is a Government of Ontario program offered through a partnership between CENGN and the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) that is providing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Ontario access to the CENGN Testbed. CENGN’s digital infrastructure is connecting SMEs like TryCycle to state-of-the-art equipment and network services, which will allow these companies to test and validate their solutions.

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About the Author

CENGN, Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks, drives technology innovation and industry growth through our testbed, technical expertise, talent development, and partner ecosystem. Through our projects, CENGN enables small and medium Canadian Enterprises to test and validate promising technologies, removing barriers to product commercialization and accelerating market growth.

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