Clinicians in Hong Kong leverage on cutting-edge wearable and artificial intelligence technology developed by Biofourmis to accelerate disease surveillance and interventions.
Digital therapeutics company, Biofourmis, announced in early March 2020 that its technology will be used in a remote monitoring and disease surveillance program involving patients with diagnosed or suspected COVID-19 in Hong Kong. The program—administered by The University of Hong Kong—also includes Hong Kong based Harmony Medical Inc., which is a joint venture partner of Biofourmis for the China region.
Diagnosed and potentially COVID-19-infected patients are being monitored with the Biovitals® Sentinel platform, a turn-key solution that Biofourmis built in less than two weeks specifically, for this initiative by customizing its industry-leading, FDA-cleared artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Biovitals® Analytics platform. The platform is able to perform 24/7 remote monitoring technology and analytics provide clinicians involved in the COVID-19 program with clinical decision support for early identification of any physiological changes that could indicate deterioration, to enable earlier interventions for better outcomes.
“The goal of this program is to leverage Biovitals® Sentinel to remotely monitor patients and identify COVID-19-related physiological biomarkers that indicate deterioration in patients,” said Prof. David Chung Wah Siu, MD, Department of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. “We hope our combined efforts also will rapidly lead to a better epidemiological understanding of COVID-19 so we can improve the outcomes of our citizens—as well as the global community—as more people become infected.”
Patients with COVID-19 deterioration commonly exhibit symptoms such as fever, cough and shortness of breath, all of which can be closely monitored through related physiological parameters using the cutting-edge, clinical-grade biosensor Everion® by Biofourmis, which is being worn on the arm by patients quarantined in their homes or clinical settings. Clinicians and researchers are still learning how this strain of the coronavirus affects the body, and the research will help elucidate that.
Signals are then fed through advanced AI and machine-learning techniques to flag key physiological changes that could indicate disease progression. The platform also includes a smartphone application that collects qualitative data reported by patients.
“The sooner these biomarkers associated with COVID-19 deterioration are identified, the sooner healthcare providers can intervene and prevent a serious medical issue,” said Kuldeep Singh Rajput, CEO of Biofourmis.
Dr. Raymond Tong, CEO of Harmony Medical Inc., joint venture partner of Biofourmis for the China region, added: “With this special partnership with The University of Hong Kong and its leading experts in the field, we are tackling the coronavirus in a rapid and an unprecedented fashion, which could potentially save lives.”
Biofourmis is currently in talks with government agencies in other regions to apply this technology to help more patients and understand more about COVID-19 for more effective treatment. [APBN]