Several Telemedicine and Remote-Patient Monitoring Solutions Cutting Through the COVID-19 Clutter

Originally published in MD+DI

There isn’t any doubt that COVID-19 is transforming our society and healthcare. Cities are under stay-at-home orders. The global pandemic is bringing an air of uncertainty to everyone’s lives and causing a shift in the way medicine is practiced. Telehealth and remote-patient monitoring technologies are gaining more traction and importance as they are becoming crucial to ease the strain from healthcare facilities. MD+DI has compiled a list of several solutions cutting through the COVID-19 clutter.

PhysIQ’s continuous remote monitoring system, pinpointIQ, could be used to provide continuous physiologic remote monitoring of homebound or quarantined patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19, thanks to labeling recently sanctioned by FDA, the company reported in a news release. Such use also includes application of pinpointIQ's proprietary Multivariate Change Index. The solution may also be used for patients with a high-risk profile, such as those with heart failure, COPD, or hypertension.

“Our entire healthcare infrastructure is about to become completely overwhelmed by COVID-19,” said Gary Conkright, CEO of physIQ, in the release. “We will have more patients than hospital beds and our only option is to find ways to better care for patients at home. With clinical grade wearable sensors and our proprietary, FDA-cleared analytics, we are providing hospitals with personalized physiologic visibility into their homebound high-risk COVID-19 patients. We believe this will not only free up hospital capacity, but also reduce clinician exposure to this highly virulent disease.”

The results of a VA-sponsored clinical study published in Circulation – Heart Failure showed that the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered devices could detect subtle physiologic changes in patients with congestive heart failure that were predictive of hospitalization one week in advance. This study demonstrates the technology's potential for detecting similar cardiovascular changes that may emerge in COVID-19 cases, the company reported in the release.

PhysIQ sends kits to patients with all the components required for continuous remote monitoring including FDA-cleared clinical-grade wearable sensors and a phone for data transmission with data plan. Data then continuously streams to the cloud where physIQ’s proprietary FDA-cleared analytics look for subtle changes in physiology, the company reported.