About Michael Hogan & Harmonic Bionics
Michael Hogan, a mechanical engineer at Harmonic Bionics, paints a vivid picture of the company's origins. He recounts the early days when it was just a group of grad students from the Renew Robotics Lab passionately working on rehab robotics. Their flagship device, Harmony, emerged from these efforts, aiming to revolutionize the recovery process for stroke patients.
Transcript

00:00 - 00:06
Hi, my name is Michael Hogan, I'm a mechanical engineer here at Harmonic Bionics, and I deal with the nuts and bolts of Harmony.



00:07 - 00:17
So we are a medical device startup and we're working to bring rehab robotics into the upper body stroke rehabilitation space.



00:17 - 00:25
Our flagship device is Harmony SHR. It's bilateral upper extremity rehab exoskeleton



00:25 - 00:39
It's used to help stroke patients recover from stroke events faster. So one of the things that we do that's really unique is bilateral sync therapy, right? We can mirror our motion from one arm to the other. And, you know, if you think about a stroke, right, it's something that happens.



00:39 - 01:14
It's a connection between the brain and the muscles that it's severed. Right. And we can help rebuild that. We help also with what's called scapula humeral rhythm. So if you were to raise your arm like I'm doing now, right, your shoulder blade raises as you lift, Right. That's not something that's connected by your musculoskeletal system. It's something that your brain is coordinating and our device is able to help coordinate that motion and help make it more natural so that hopefully when people recover from Stokes, they're recovering in the right way

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Transcript

But what we've known from what I experience was, is we were able to get there with the system. We still there with the system. The system has what is needed to provide us what we're looking for, because every company, admittedly, is trying to get compliant. If we educate people, if we get people the education that they need and to get over the fear factor, I think 90% of those things can be resolved because most people will go to what they're most familiar with.What I worked with from a different company, but they're not willing to sit down and look at what the demographics are saying. People are into social media now. People are moving fast into fast paced world. But technologies are still antiquated. So there's a disconnect here, right? So while we're moving at a fast pace at home with dragging at work, so why can't we continue that speed while we at work?If your supplier has issues and you're not informed on time, you want to have an alternate supplier in place. If your suppliers are not qualified, you may not know that that needs to happen. And so when you have an integrated system that speaks to itself and is giving you all this data, you literally have the pulse of the organization in your hands as an executive at a money bound access.

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