Aquarate, the health tech company founded by young designer and entrepreneur, Rebecca Taylor, scooped first prize in the Smart Health category of the prestigious Liverpool Mayor’s Challenge. The award is a collaboration between Liverpool City Council and Smart Liverpool and looks at innovative ways of improving the health of an urban population.

Aquarate’s founder, Rebecca Taylor, 23, studied Design Engineering at Liverpool’s John Moore’s University. It was here, as part of her final year project, she began working on what would become the Aquarate digital fluid balance system. Her suite of sensor-based products are designed to eradicate the manual and time-consuming task of monitoring patients’ fluid intake and output, currently undertaken by nurses and healthcare workers.

With over 40,000 people in the UK annually dying of preventable hydration related issues, accurate monitoring of this data is crucial, particularly in patients with chronic illnesses. The AQi Cup and AQO tracker will save time, but more importantly, enable clinicians to accurately monitor a patient's real-time fluid balance. Helping to reduce the preventable deaths caused by hydration-related illnesses.

During Aquarate’s design development process they have completed patient user trails at The Royal Liverpool University hospital, as part of the hospital’s Global Digital Exemplar programme. This has led to important feedback that shaped the products physical appearance and patient interaction journey.

As winners of the Mayor’s Challenge, Aquarate will build upon these learnings. Receiving £5,000 and a valuable opportunity to partner with the City Council on a 6 month proof of concept project. Delighted at Aquarate’s winning award entry, Rebecca said;

“This is a fantastic opportunity to further test our electronic fluid balance products in a real-world city environment. We look forward to working with the Council and its partners over the next six months, and drawing on their knowledge and expertise.

We’re hoping this work will lead towards a city-wide procurement contract in hospitals and care homes. Allowing us to save lives that are needlessly being lost to preventable hydration-related illness.”