Value continues to grow for remote patient monitoring (RPM) for chronic medical conditions, for rehab, and for discharged hospital patients. The COVID-19 pandemic boosted RPM adoption to such a degree that a 2021 survey by
Vivalink found that the management of many healthcare facilities believe RPM would be a mainstream practice by 2026. Vivalink has a horse in the RPM adoption race because its business is building digital healthcare solutions including wearable vital sign devices. We’ve written about Vivalink’s smart patch wireless biometric sensors many times, most recently earlier this spring in a post about a study that found mobile cardiac telemetry that uses Vivalink’s ECG sensor patch offers better detection and diagnosis of heart problems than the gold standard Holter monitor.
Vivalink recently announced a wearable patch that monitors multiple vital signs including cuffless blood pressure. The integrated patch biosensor is available for commercial research and development. Vivalink’s multimodal patch captures ECG trace, heart rate, respiratory rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The Vivalink patch is FDA cleared for ECG and heart rate measurement in the U.S. and CE cleared for ECG, heart rate, and respiratory rate in the European Union, according to the company. The current clearances do not include marketing the device to the general public for cuffless blood pressure readings, however, which is why availability is restricted to research and development applications for now.
The differentiator with the Vivalink patch isn’t that it’s the first cuffless BP reader. There are already devices that are not FDA cleared that measure blood pressure without a cuff. Some use video from a smart phone. Some use PPG. A study published in Nature earlier this year reported the success of a cuffless device that uses bio-impedance sensors to read blood pressure. Last month the FDA gave clearance for Biobeat to use its PPG-based platform to monitor respiratory rate and body temperature, adding those vitals to previous FDA clearance for monitoring blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, and pulse rate. Vivalink’s multi-vital wearable patch is rechargeable and reusable. Vivalink designed the patch for both remote and ambulatory patient monitoring and it is currently available for early access for such applications.
