Omron's HeartGuide gets first rollout as part of physIQ's remote monitoring platform

Originally published in MobiHealthNews

This morning Omron Healthcare announced that it has inked a deal with physIQ to integrate the former’s wearable blood pressure monitor HeartGuide into the remote monitoring platform pinpointIQ. 

HeartGuide just launched in January, after getting FDA clearance in late 2018. The system includes a flexible synthetic band that is designed to inflate and maintain its shape when taking a blood pressure reading, while still remaining comfortable on the wrist. 

This technology will be integrated with Omron’s device agnostic platform physIQ’s pinpoint. According to a press statement Pinpoint can “capture continuous  multivariate physiological data from wearable sensors, apply FDA-cleared AI-based analytics and provide actionable clinical information to a patient’s care team.”

The integrated system will be targeted towards patients post-discharge, who have recently been hospitalized for heart failure or a heart attack. The pair plan to rollout the new integration at an unnamed Chicago-area health system. 

Why it matters

The companies said that by combining these two technologies, they're able to offer at-risk patients proactive care. 

“By integrating HeartGuide into our pinpointIQ platform, we are confident that we have an end-to-end solution that will address a massive unmet need in the market and bring enormous value to patients and their clinicians. This is the beginning of a relationship that we believe will truly transform how patients are cared for at home,” Gary Conkright, CEO of physIQ, said in a statement. 

What's the trend

Both Omron and physIQ have been in the digital health space for some time. Omron has made its share of deals in the past. In January 2018, the company made a partnership with AliveCore to develop the Omron Blood Pressure Monitor + EKG, which will allow users to measure for two critical risk factors for stroke within their home. 

physIQ has also been making partnerships. In July the company announced that it was teaming up with Vital Connect and the Haga Teaching Hospital in the Netherlands to conduct a study on how wearable biosensors and artificial intelligence can augment care for cancer patients undergoing treatment. 

But physIQ’s most recent news came in September when it got the FDA green light for its atrial fibrillation-detecting analytics engine designed to be used in both a patient care setting and in clinical trials. 

On the record 

“At Omron, our mission is Going for Zero, the elimination of heart attack and stroke,”  Ranndy Kellogg, president and CEO of Omron Healthcare, said in a statement. “HeartGuide is a significant step forward in Going for Zero and the addition of advanced analytics builds on that advancement to give even higher risk patients greater power in managing their condition and reducing their risk of an event. We are committed to working with physIQ to leverage their industry-leading platform and human physiology analytics to provide better care for patients.”