A medical innovation is moving past current conversations around wearable devices and monitors for remote care, to a new no-touch product using radio waves.
United States start-up SensVita, recently admitted to Cornell University’s Praxis Center for Venture Development, is developing a clinical-grade sensing platform that can track heart and lung health at home, without wires, electrodes and without ever touching the skin.
Praxis Center Academic Administrative Director Bob Scharf said the device could give patients and clinicians real-time data without requiring complex devices or intrusive procedures.
“The first human application would be for patients who are difficult to monitor – memory care patients or neonatal patients,” Mr Scharf said.
He said the idea was audacious but deceptively simple.
“Using near-field radio frequency sensing to detect tiny physiological movements inside the body. SensVita’s sensors can sit in a room, a piece of furniture or even in clothing nearby, and continuously monitor cardiac and respiratory metrics with no burden on patients.”
SensVita founder Thomas Conroy said the company was targeting chronic disease management, especially heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sleep apnea and other conditions that demanded frequent monitoring.
Mr Conroy said the hope was that continuous data could catch subtle declines in function before they escalated into costly hospitalizations.
He said remote monitoring was already a central theme in health care innovation because frequent hospital readmissions cost billions and drove much of the burden in chronic care systems.
“We are focused on people at a high risk for going back to the hospital. That’s the group we want to monitor.”
