The largest strike by U.S. health care workers, in early Oct. 2022, brought increased attention to the seriousness of the staff shortage in hospitals and the urgent need to address it. Multiple reports over the last 10 years have documented the impact of alarm fatigue on nurses, in particular, and its contribution to professional burnout and ongoing staffing issues. A bit counterintuitively, more integrated, continuous monitoring of vital signs reduces alarm fatigue for medical staff attending to post-surgical patients, a study by GE Healthcare Technologies Inc. and Cleveland Clinic found.
Aural Analytics Inc. received a breakthrough device designation from the U.S. FDA for its Speech Vitals-ALS technology, a software application that collects and analyzes speech recordings to help monitor amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in adults in clinic and home settings. The software could improve management of the devastating disease.
Huma Therapeutics Ltd. received the first EU Class IIb approval for a software as a medical device (SaMD) product, winning the certification for its system for collecting and analysing patient data across multiple disease indications, the company reported. The approval will open up the market for digital health apps, with customers now able to link into Huma’s underlying technical platform to develop their own digital health apps and companion diagnostics, avoiding the need to then get their own, separate EU medical device certification.
One company has developed a promising device and care model to reduce the exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that often send patients to the hospital and contribute to accelerated disease progression. Patients who used a wearable remote cardiorespiratory monitoring device developed by Spire Inc. experienced a 64% decrease in cardiopulmonary-specific admissions in a study published in the International Journal of COPD.
A panel at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference touched on how multiple remote patient monitoring devices and management can be streamlined via machine learning to identify patients who need follow up, in many cases in their homes, increasing value without increasing the burden on already short-staffed health care organizations. The panelists saw technology as a way around a shortage of providers that could both increase access to care and deliver more targeted acute care while also addressing factors in health disparity to prevent development of disease.
With the launch of the Mawi Heart Patch in the U.S., physicians and patients have a lightweight, wireless heart monitoring system that provides seven days of cardiac information. Using a disposable two-lead system affixed to the chest, the device provides a detailed report within 24 hours and can reduce time to diagnosis by 97%, Mawi Inc. said.
Medtronic plc inked an agreement to combine its patient care technologies with a wearable, remote monitoring platform developed by Pasadena, Calif.-based Rockley Photonics Inc. The Bioptx contains compact, photonics-based sensors inside a wristband to monitor a range of biomarkers beyond standard blood pressure, heart rate, pulse oximetry and glucose levels, making Rockley and Medtronic’s development partnership, said Rockley Chair and CEO Andrew Rickman, “a terrific match.”
Notal Vision Inc. released two clinical reports it said prove the feasibility and efficacy of its patient-operated, home-based optical coherence tomography (OCT) device for monitoring wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This comes in the wake of a 2021 report that concluded patient operation of the Notal Vision Home OCT (NVHO) and its machine learning algorithm were generally on par with human experts evaluating retinal fluid and fluid volume in patients with AMD.
PARIS – Resilience SAS raised $46 million in a series A round to ramp up European distribution of its mobile application intended for remote monitoring of breast cancer patients, in partnership with the Gustave Roussy Center in Villejuif, France. This funding round was led by two Parisian venture capital funds specializing in digital health – Cathay Innovation SAS and Singular Capital Partners SAS – along with Dutch-based Exor Seeds NV, German-based Picus Capital GmbH and Seaya Capital Gestion, SGEIC, SA, from Spain.
TORONTO – Hyivy Health Inc. has secured CA$1.1 million (US$888,000) in pre-seed funding to manufacture, test and obtain medical device approval for a women’s pelvic rehabilitation platform and to explore its use for relieving pelvic pain during clinical trials this summer.
