Sarah Doherty and Kerith Perreur-Lloyd have been honoured once again for their innovative product SideStix, this time at the MISTIC Innovation Awards in Nanaimo.
The Mid-Island Science Technology and Innovation Council (MISTIC) awards were created in 2006 to highlight and recognize knowledge-based businesses and help bring them into the spotlight.
SideStix was chosen as this year's winner in the emerging product design category, beating out iDUS Controls from Nanaimo and Pixton Comics Inc. from Parksville.
Doherty and Perreur-Lloyd were excited about the win this week.
"It's tremendous. We are very, very happy," Perreur-Lloyd said.
Winning this latest award, as well as the da Vinci award earlier this year, has helped shine a light on the couple's highly adaptive forearm crutches called SideStix.
"They have influenced our sales and they just add to the credibility of SideStix being a product that's research driven and evidence based," added Doherty, "providing users with the ability to stay active and healthy, because in the past you couldn't do both with what was out there."
Perreur-Lloyd said winning the awards is also an important way to get more insurance companies to recognize SideStix as an option for patients that is worth paying for.
"Most extended insurance plans do cover SideStix, but once you have both research and awards, that goes a long way to really validating that," he said.
Doherty and Perreur-Lloyd are currently working to have SideStix recognized as a product covered by all insurance plans and Veterans Canada, without patients needing to provide a letter of justification.
"You have to apply and it's a very lengthy process, and it's not an easy process," Perreur-Lloyd said.
The pair are putting in the effort because they feel SideStix is unique and needed in the health system.
"The ergonomics of SideStix with the angles and components that make up SideStix are very comfortable, whereas I think most people who have walked on traditional crutches say that it's very uncomfortable. Therefore you're not encouraged to be mobile, because if it hurts to move around you're not going to move around," Perreur-Lloyd said. "So we've actually created something that's really very comfortable to walk on and then we've made attachments, which means you can walk safely in areas that normally you can't with crutches: on beaches, in the snow, on mountains.
"We've created something that means you can continue to do the activities that you love even though you're using crutches, and that's unique. There's nothing else on the market that does that."
Doherty is pleased with the direction SideStix is going and there is more publicity and possible validation on the horizon when SideStix airs on the Dragons' Den Nov. 30.
"People are becoming more and more aware of us and the Dragons' Den appearance will definitely help," Doherty said, noting she could not say if a deal was agreed upon with the Dragons until after the airing of the show.
To find out more about SideStix, go to www.sidestix.com.
