Systems that monitor vital signs are critically important in any health system with seriously ill patients; it’s estimated that about 53% of U.S. hospitals have computerized remote patient monitoring systems. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the remote patient monitoring market is anticipated to be worth more than $31.3 billion by the end of 2023, up from $15.8 billion in 2017 (an increase of more than 97%).
One startup chasing after it is Current Health (formerly snap40), which Christopher McCann and Microsoft veteran Stewart Whiting cofounded in 2015 with the goal of preventing illness for one million patients around the world by 2021. The Edinburgh-based firm provides a patient management product that predicts diseases and recommends specific interventions to physicians and nurses, using a combination of machine learning, clinical indicators, symptoms, and vital signs monitoring.
After an eventful year in which Current Health’s revenue grew by 300% and it inked partnerships with two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, the company today provided an update on its growth and near-term roadmap. Following on the heels of an $8 million seed round last year, Current closed a $11.5 million series A round led by MMC Ventures with participation from Par Equity, Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Investment Bank, and life insurer and asset manager Legal & General. CEO McCann says the fresh capital will be used to scale the firm’s current platform, expand its clinical operations and marketing teams, and open a U.S. headquarters in New York City.
A part of Current’s solution — dubbed HomePack — is a battery-powered armband that recharges wirelessly and tracks biometrics like pulse, blood oxygen level, body temperature, and resting heart rate, which it transmits over Wi-Fi to a dedicated hub. Said hub provides local Wi-Fi while transmitting vital signs and mobility data over cellular to a cloud backend, where it’s analyzed to generate personalized notifications and alert health care professionals to major events.
Above: Current’s remote health monitoring product.
Both the armband and hub are designed to integrate with third-party devices from partners including Vivalnk, MIR, iHealth, and Omron, as well as electronic health records and Current’s own web and mobile apps. On the practitioner side, the apps feature HIPAA-compliant text messaging plus video patient visits and risk stratification. Patients have their own app for tablets, with educational content and a customizable chatbot that uses over 100 predefined pathways to capture symptoms and deliver medication reminders.
Earlier this year, Current Health obtained FDA Class II clearance, meaning it successfully demonstrated its platform was equivalent to another legally marketed product with FDA approval or clearance. Around the same time, it began working with Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and Mount Sinai in Brooklyn to remotely monitor patients after discharge, and it hopes to add over 50 integrations to HomePack by 2020 to enable the tracking of things like axillary temperature and spirometry measurements.
Current Health is far from the only startup with a holistic at-home remote monitoring solution, of course. Others include Biobeat, which is developing a cuffless blood pressure and heart-rate monitor that recently received 510(k) clearance; Bardy Diagnostics, which snagged $35.5 million earlier this year for its remote monitoring patches; and Health Recovery Solutions, a Princeton, New Jersey-based company developing remote monitoring solutions for health systems and medical centers. But Current Health is on a something of a roll lately, having recently doubled the size of its workforce and filled out its C-Suite with a new COO and VP of sales.
“We’ve spent the last three years quietly and carefully building and testing our platform directly with health care providers,” said McCann. “Now with our platform FDA-cleared and through partnerships with some of the biggest health care providers and pharmaceutical companies in the world, we plan to scale our solution to better treat millions of lives over the next five years. By helping health care providers treat patients preventively and at the earliest point, we can play a key role in enabling sustainable, high-quality and universal health care delivery.”
Author: Kyle Wiggers
Source: Venturebeat
