The internet of medical things (IoMT), a connected collection of medical devices, software, and health-care systems and services, is a growing segment in the IoT space. The IoMT market is forecast to reach $254.2 billion in 2026, up from $44.6 billion in 2018, according to AllTheResearch market research firm. Applications range from clinical and home monitoring to wearable health-care devices, including fitness trackers that are becoming more sophisticated and accurate.
One of the biggest applications, remote health-care monitoring, has become more important during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Health-care providers say one of the biggest benefits is improved patient outcomes, particularly for patients who need to monitor chronic diseases.
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the significance of telemedicine, which brings patients and health-care professionals together when physical consultations are inconvenient or impossible. Online visits, video visits, and phone consultations have indeed represented a safer and more efficient way to receive initial care. Such telehealth services are, however, insufficient in the case of chronic conditions, requiring remote health-care monitoring.
One of the biggest applications is heart health, ranging from connected cardiac-monitoring systems, including complex algorithms and artificial intelligence, to remote monitoring of high blood pressure, or hypertension.
Omron’s HeartGuide (Source: Omron) Click for a larger image.
If not properly managed, hypertension can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Pandemic or not, patients can now monitor their hypertension and adjust their medication accordingly from home. One example, announced at CES 2021, is Omron Healthcare’s launch of its remote blood pressure monitoring service and tools.
“For those on the higher end of the hypertension scale, that risk is even higher during this pandemic,” said Ranndy Kellogg, president and CEO of Omron Healthcare. “In fact, recent reports have shown that heart-attack death rates have more than doubled during the Covid-19 pandemic, because fewer patients are going to the hospital where they’re experiencing symptoms. This is alarming. It means that many of these patients are not visiting their doctor during this pandemic and managing their hypertension.”
According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 1.13 billion people worldwide have hypertension. Omron Healthcare is trying to make it easier for patients to take blood pressure readings at home and connect patients and physicians through data sharing.
Presented at CES 2021, the company’s VitalSight includes a digital blood pressure monitor with cuff, weight scale, and digital medication tracker, as well as a data hub.
Bridging patients and physicians
Over the last three years, Omron has strengthened its position in blood pressure monitoring through a series of product launches. Often at CES.
In 2018, Omron introduced the HeartGuide watch-type wearable blood pressure monitor. FDA-cleared, it monitors continuously varying blood pressure oscillations to allow a good understanding of hypertension-related risks undetectable by physical exam alone and the characteristics of blood pressure oscillations that differ from person to person, the
company said. This device has a position sensor, which assesses and ensures that the wrist is appropriately positioned within a range around the heart level during blood pressure measurement.
“The same technology that’s in the doctor’s office is now available around your wrist to ensure an accurate reading of your blood pressure, with insights on your heart health provided through the accompanying HeartAdvisor mobile app,” said Carol Lucarelli, director of marketing and e-commerce, Omron Healthcare.
Omron’s Complete blood pressure monitor with EKG capability in a single device (Source: Omron) Click for a larger image.
At CES 2020, Omron launched Complete, a blood pressure monitor with EKG capability in a single device to help serve those who must manage irregular heartbeat or atrial fibrillation, also called AFib, a condition that comes with 5× higher stroke risks. “We also created Complete to help anyone who has a family history of irregular heartbeat or suspects they may have the condition,” said Lucarelli. “Irregular heartbeat is notoriously difficult to detect because it’s irregular and a checkup at the doctor’s office can often miss it.”
Omron is now expanding availability of Complete and, beginning in March, consumers in several EU countries, as well as Japan, will be able to purchase this product. “Complete and other connected blood pressure monitors sync with the Omron Connect app, where users can store their data, track it over time, and then share it with their doctors,” said Lucarelli.
This year, Omron has introduced VitalSight, a remote patient-monitoring service that aims to send patients’ data securely and in real time to the clinician’s electronic medical record system, or EMR.
“VitalSight sends automatic notifications through the EMR that signal when a patient has readings that indicate if action needs to be taken,” said Jeffrey Ray, Omron Healthcare’s executive director of business and technology. “And because VitalSight fosters stronger patient-physician communication, it helps the care team to focus on urgent patient health data so they know when action is necessary. Doctors can also personalize blood pressure thresholds for each patient and receive alerts for high readings. Those alerts and readings integrate into the doctor’s EMR or Omron’s dashboard.”
Doctors can also make a change in the patient’s medication, examine the results as they come in, and adjust the prescription accordingly. No need to wait for weeks for the next doctor appointment.
Once patients receive a kit delivered to their home that includes an Omron-connected blood pressure monitor and data hub, they can immediately start using VitalSight. “It was important that we made the VitalSight kit plug-and-play and ready to use right out of the box, without the need for Wi-Fi or any separate cellular connection,” added Ray.
Omron has been collaborating with Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and is currently conducting a clinical study of VitalSight with Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
Omron has also merged its current app, Heart Advisor, and Connect into Omron Connect 2.0 to “foster patient-doctor dialogue, advance heart-health education, and provide personalized insights based on daily activities and lifestyle,” said Lucarelli.
Sharing data in real time
Every minute counts.
Treating a stroke patient soon after the event can significantly reduce long-term disability. “Eighty percent of heart attacks and strokes are preventable,” said Kellogg, but “that requires active management of one’s condition.”
VitalSight has been designed to encourage more remote monitoring, more communication between the patient and the physician, and more data to make treatment decisions and improve health outcomes.
“Data can save lives,” said Andy Atwell, executive director of business and technology at Omron Healthcare. “We believe that patients will be more motivated to participate in regular monitoring to manage their hypertension and to change their behavior if they know what their data means.”
Omron’s VitalSight patient-monitoring service (Source: Omron) Click for a larger image.
More data is better. A key feature of VitalSight is the ability to detect trends and changes in heart-health data and to flag the most urgent data points to the physician or care team so they can take action.
When asked why it was important to connect VitalSight to the patient’s EMR, Ray said that doctors can’t be expected to know how to use patients’ data — for example, after a patient has taken their blood pressure at home — if it’s just flowed in without additional information. By placing the data in their EMR, doctors have instant access to the patient’s record and the information about the measurements taken at home. “It’s important that this happens in their existing workflow; we don’t want them to have to go to a different system and then come back,” said Ray.
Health data is highly sensitive data. Omron confirmed that VitalSight meets the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidelines. For instance, HIPAA’s technical safeguards require protected health information (PHI) to be encrypted to NIST standards, which calls for the use of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128, 192, or 256 bits. “We actually use a method that has an encryption of 512 bits,” claimed Ray.
This article was originally published on EE Times Europe.
Advertisement
Learn more about Omron Electronic Components
