I’ve tried to keep Corona-virus free in the last couple of issues. That’s pretty much impossible at this point. However, the good news – if there is any right now – is that some wearables are actually starting to be used to help fight the pandemic. Not just optimistic press releases, but actual usage. So let’s learn about that.

Providence – first in the eye of the storm in Seattle – are using Xealth to help deliver remote patient monitoring. 

The ever inventive Israeli’s are adapting a couple of monitoring systems I’ve not come across before for remote monitoring. EchoCare Technologies uses radar to detect falls in seniors primarily, but also measures respiration rate. Neteera uses a similar idea, but seems to capture a broader range of vital signs.

Also from Israel, Nuvo Group gets the nod from the FDA for its remote pregnancy monitoring for both baby and mom.

Unlikely saviors for desperate times, Alphabet’s Verily has helped to roll out COVID-19 testing in California.

Meanwhile, the Aussie’s have developed a biosensor for real-time tumor tracking. Details on how it works here.

New to me, Tissue Analytics, uses a phone app and machine learning to provide remote clinicians with highly detailed insights into wounds.

I’m shocked by this survey result: 91% of American’s want healthcare price transparency. Did the other 9% not understand the question? Why would anybody not want to know the price of care before treatment…? The answer, most likely, because they have a healthcare plan that costs them little or nothing beyond their monthly premium..

It’s been widely suggested that treating patients in their home would reduce the cost of care, versus a hospital visit. Intuitive really, but still needs to be proven out. Brigham and Women’s in Boston has done that to some extent. Less than 100 patients total, but demonstrating 38% lower cost per episode of care.

Plenty of discussion about the almost complete inability to do contact tracing in the US for COVID-19. Not helped by the fact that in many ways the US acts like a collection of 50 smaller countries – not unlike the dreaded EU! Not to mention the complete lack of integrated health records. But, there is at least now an outline of a policy to tackle that. Policy papers may be irrelevant at this point though, as Apple and Alphabet have announced that they will work together to enable contact tracing. But still plenty of unanswered questions about that project.

Remote monitoring in more than one sense, Biovotion has a COVID-19 related remote monitoring project in remote Australia, Murrumbidgee Local Health District to be exact. Not to be outdone, Caretaker Medical is also setting up for remote monitoring of vitals with Australia’s first virtual hospital. 

Masimo SafetyNet has also been extended to remote-monitoring in the home for suspected COVID cases by St Lukes in Pennsylvania.

CMS requires providers to be compliant with a bundled care protocol called SEP-1. However, there now seems to be evidence that not all elements of the bundle are necessary. Dig deeper though, and it seems SEP-1 might not be based on clinical evidence at all.

Possibly the most classless press release of recent days: MindCotine scores US$230,000 just in time to get at-risk smokers to quit before Covid gets them. Maybe the team at MindCotine just needed to invest a little more of that $230,000 in a better translator, hard to say.