Every year, tech enthusiasts look forward to the annual Consumer Electronic Show (CES) event in Las Vegas, which kicks off the year’s expo circuit with a massive 170,000 attendees and 4,400 exhibitors all talking about the latest tech. This year’s event again featured a heavy focus on healthcare products, as connected health devices continue to proliferate and further evolve healthcare from a strictly doctor’s office phenomenon to home-based engagement.
The growth of these devices can help drive awareness of not only connected health capabilities among patient populations, but can also help drive patient engagement and their awareness of their health and wellness needs, which can ultimately help reduce the burden on physicians and the healthcare system. In addition, the data recorded by many of these devices can help support population health and value-based care models that are becoming increasingly popular.
While new devices target many patient populations, many target a growing elderly population with the goal of making it easier for them to cope with conditions and live more comfortably in their home environments, avoiding repeated physician or hospital visits.
Here are a few of the digital health devices that were introduced at CES 2020:
- AARP Innovation Lab continues to develop applications designed to allow people to lead better lives as they age. This includes an app for VRHealth’s platform that allows stroke victims to leverage VR for home-based physical therapy. AARP has also partnered with Sana Health on a wearable device that uses light and sound pulses for neurowave stimulation to relieve chronic pain.
- Aidar Health has created MouthLab to help deliver precision medicine. The device gathers more than 10 different health statistics through the mouth in less than one minute to deliver real-time feedback and actionable health intelligence, including early disease detection for timely intervention.
- MedWand helps bring out the most in telehealth visits, giving patients a tool to measure nearly all health statistics and transmit them to physicians. The device can measure heart and respiratory rates, blood oxygen level, and temperature; listen to the heart, lungs, and abdomen; conduct ECGs; look inside the nose, throat, mouth and ears; and inspect skin surfaces.
- A new blood pressure monitoring system from Valencell using photoplethysmography (PPG) has been designed to integrate with wearable devices. The calibration-free, cuff-less technology makes blood pressure monitoring available through devices patients use every day, like earbuds. The company is working with partner Sonion to put the technology into hearing aids.
- Grapheal, a French company, has a smart wound patch that records statistics from chronic wounds so patients and physicians can monitor healing progress. Infections or other irregularities can be relayed to physicians for early intervention to reduce complications.
- The latest version of OMRON Healthcare’s HeartGuide is a wearable blood pressure monitor improves on the original version launched at last year’s CES by moving from an arm cuff style to a smart watch form factor that includes precision testing, fitness tracking, sleep monitoring, while also connecting to mobile devices for notifications. It also released an upper arm wearable blood pressure monitor with integrated EKG.
- Dutch firm Reducept is looking to help patients better manage their chronic pain. Its virtual reality-based app hopes to train chronic pain patients to manage their conditions by helping them understand how their brains and bodies react to pain and what actions provide relief.
- NovaSight is taking lazy eye treatment into the 21st century with its CureSight product, which provides tailored treatment using artificial intelligence and data analytics. The system also reports progress back to care givers and physicians.
- Hoping to help reduce the number of injuries resulting from falls – which could cost patients, insurance provides, and Medicare/Medicaid more than $67 billion this year – WELT has developed a smart belt that uses sensor data to calculate fall risk and alert wearers or other caregivers when gait patterns become unstable.
These are only a sample of the connected health devices that were on display at CES 2020, but the message is clear: Connected Health is here to stay, and digital technology is making it easier for patients to become more involved in their own healthcare while allowing them to manage their conditions more conveniently in the context of their daily lives.
To learn more about how connected health is enabling more convenient care and helping reduce the burden on the healthcare system, visit us here.
Meredith Strachan
Meredith leads strategy and execution of Trapollo's comprehensive marketing strategy including events, digital, content, campaigns and social media. She has a passion for bringing awareness to innovative, digital healthcare solutions through marketing programs enabling organizations to fully engage patients and improve patient experiences.