FDA clears Current Health's remote monitoring platform for home use

Recently deployed in US and UK hospitals, the company's upper-arm wearable and accompanying platform may now go home with the patient.
By Dave Muoio
08:07 am
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In February, Edinburgh, Scotland-based Current Health (formerly snap40) received FDA clearance for clinical use of its artificial intelligence-enabled device and platform for remote patient monitoring in the hospital.

Taking things one step further, the company announced this morning that it has also received the regulator’s blessing for use in post-acute care — what Current Health is calling “the first-ever FDA clearance for end-to-end, real-time, passive [remote patient monitoring] wearable and platform.”

“The post-acute FDA clearance comes as Current Health is experiencing overwhelming customer demand for its platform, combining its all-in-one wireless wearable, which provides ICU-level accuracy and tracks more vital signs than any other all-in-one wearable available today, with analytics to derive actionable insights,” the company wrote in a statement announcing the news.

The device at the core of Current Health’s offering is an upper-arm wearable that continuously measures a patient’s vitals. Patients using the platform receive the tracker alongside a tablet that provides a Q&A chatbot, educational content, medication reminders and support for video or text conversations with a clinician.

Current Health, according to its announcement, is partnered with six large US health systems including Mount Sinai Brooklyn, as well as with the Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and other UK providers. Of note, the Class II clearance covers the company’s entire platform, including Bluetooth integrations with other devices.

WHAT’S THE IMPACT

The “hospital at home” movement driven by at-home remote monitoring technologies offers an opportunity to limit expensive hospital stays while keeping patients happily with their loved ones. And, for those post-acute patients whose conditions do take a turn for the worse, remote monitoring platforms help to promptly reconnect them to professional care.

“Our rapidly growing customer base indicates how focussed health systems and home health agencies are on moving more healthcare from hospital to home,” Current Health CEO and cofounder Christopher McCann said in a statement. “Today, Current is helping them do just that by monitoring patients’ health trajectories to enable earlier interventions, reduce the overall and growing cost of hospital readmissions and, more importantly, prevent avoidable deaths. But more fundamentally we’re building a future where healthcare comes to us. Patients don’t always know when to call their doctor. Current Health will.”

WHAT’S THE TREND

A recent poll found that many physicians and patients are interested in employing remote monitoring technologies, although some respondents still expressed concerns about data security. Remote monitoring technologies have also become something of a focus for the tech device industry. And Current Health is hardly alone in the space —for instance, Bardy Diagnostics just raised $35.5 million for its remote monitoring patches, while Spry Health’s COPD wearable received clearance earlier this month.

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