USA: New LifeShirt to address data & usability gaps in RPM market

VivoMetrics Inc, a leading innovator in remote patient monitoring (RPM), announced the first complete prototype of their next generation LifeShirt for the remote monitoring of patients' vital signs by healthcare professionals. The new LifeShirt has significant advantages over currently available monitoring technologies, dramatically simplifying the way in which key vital sign data is collected and transmitted to remote care providers. The system also provides a more complete understanding of patient health status by continuously collecting and fusing multiple vital signs into a validated, actionable health index--helping transform healthcare through the practical realization of telemedicine.
The next generation LifeShirt incorporates cutting-edge sensor technology and wireless data transmission into a lightweight, comfortable "smart garment" that eliminates the need for patients to operate multiple, discrete monitoring devices at specific times or to manually transmit vital sign data to those remotely managing their care. The system will passively and continuously collect electrocardiogram (ECG), respiratory, and temperature data in context with posture and activity levels and automatically transmit that data via cellular networks or Bluetooth to their healthcare providers.
VivoMetrics' new LifeShirt will nearly eliminate patient involvement in their own vital sign monitoring, requiring the user to simply wear the garment.
Numerous studies confirm the potential of RPM initiatives to improve outcomes for patients with chronic diseases and reduce the net cost of their care. It is estimated that savings resulting from RPM will reach $200 billion over the next 25 years in the United States alone. However, an April 2009 report by Datamonitor notes that available telehealth technology will need to improve in terms of reliability and ease-of-use in order for adoption to increase.
VivoMetrics' intent is to address these needs with the next generation LifeShirt and help make the full promise of RPM a reality.
"VivoMetrics has been a true innovator in remote monitoring technologies," says Kent Tonkin, assistant director of information technology at St. Francis University's Center of Excellence for Remote and Medically Under-served Areas (CERMUSA), a federally funded program that has begun a partnership with VivoMetrics and is dedicated to improving access to healthcare. "Solutions like LifeShirt can help us reach our goals of providing better lives and lower healthcare costs for our neighbors."
In addition to simplifying how vital sign data is collected, VivoMetrics also intends to transform how healthcare professionals can utilize this data in caring for their remote patients. In partnership with OBS Medical (Carmel, IN), VivoMetrics is adapting hospital-proven decision-assist software to fuse data from multiple vital signs into a single index of health status that will provide actionable insights into a patient's wellbeing and enable caregivers to proactively intervene in their care.

"The challenge for us is quite clear. If patients and providers aren't completely comfortable with monitoring technology, they won't use it," says Howard R. Baker, VivoMetrics' president and chief executive officer. "The key to strong adoption and sustainability in the RPM space will be highly dependent on both patient and provider compliance. It's exciting for us to be able to draw upon over 10 years of experience acquiring quality data in a vast array of ambulatory environments. We're creating solutions that address the enormous cost of caring for a population that is growing older and experiencing increasing rates of chronic illness."
The first integrated prototypes of the new LifeShirt have been assembled and tested, and VivoMetrics expects to begin collecting clinical data later this year.