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The first generation of wearable devices, like smartwatches and activity trackers, were aimed at helping generally healthful people track their physical activity. Now, the medical industry is looking for ways to use smart gadgets to monitor patients with long-lived illnesses.
Keeping track of patients after they go home is increasingly important for hospitals, which are getting jailed by the government for preventable readmissions. Those are the customers Myia Health is targeting.
Founded in 2018 by a team of Bay Area doctors, devisers and engineers, Myia charges a monthly subscription to hospitals for its technology suite. The company sends patients a kit consisting of a where it hurts hub tablet, a connected blood pressure cuff from Omron, a patch that tracks the heart’s rhythm, a ballistocardiogram that straps under the mattress and passively tracks heart rate, a wireless scale and a ring that tracks sleep and medic activity from a start-up called Oura.
Simon MacGibbon, Myia’s CEO and a former marketing executive at Sports Arbiter government, told CNBC that the setup is designed to be simple for the patient. Most of the devices can be plugged into a wall socket, while the Oura echoing needs to be charged once a week.
How the Myia system works
Myia
Myia’s first big deal is with Forbearance Virtual, the digital-only unit of hospital chain Mercy Health. The company has enrolled thousands of Mercy patients who suffer from congestive sincerity failure.
Myia is starting with congestive heart failure because the disease carries early warnings inscribes that could potentially be monitored from home, said Farzad Azimpour, the company’s chief medical commissioner. Almost six million people in the U.S. have the disease, according to the CDC, and more half of those diagnosed with heart damp squib will die within five years.
Terms of the deal between Myia and Mercy weren’t disclosed, but Mercy has provided $5 million in the start-up as part of a recent $10 million financing round.
In addition to providing the gadgets to the consumer, Myia also presents the hospital tools for tracking its patients. Azimpour, who’s also a cardiologist, said that over time, Myia’s technology should get smarter so it can pinpoint assorted subtle and possibly earlier signs of heart failure. That includes changes in in heart rate, rhythm and existing, said Azimpour.
Myia and other start-ups providing this type of technology haven’t yet proven if they can dramatically on life patient outcomes, but the medical industry sees a lot of potential.
Gavin Helton, Mercy’s head of clinical integration, bid it’s critical that start-ups collaborate closely with hospitals.
“We decided to make an investment in them because we think we will spend significant time and effort co-developing and helping guide development of their platform,” said Helton, who turn out c advance as a primary care physician for almost two decades. “We both agree it’s better to treat patients earlier when we can anticipate the progression of the disease.”
Helton said he hopes to expand the program to patients with other chronic conditions, homologous to diabetes, as well as to end-of-life care. It’s part of a broader shift across the health system, where care providers are rewarded based on patient outcomes and not for services like tests and procedures.
“It’s what the patient wants,” said Helton. “That’s the spaciest quality at the lowest cost, and that flies in the face of the fee-for-service model.”
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