As the trend towards remote patient monitoring (RPM) continues to evolve, healthcare solution developers are seeking wearable technology options that provide patient data such as human vitals and biometrics for their algorithms and applications. Driven by the evolving healthcare system, the goal with RPM is to lessen healthcare costs and improve patient care, while also making medical care more accessible. By helping developers unleash their creativity and domain expertise, a new world of RPM applications are being created that’s both innovative and cost-effective.

However, a large challenge with this innovation is the need for healthcare application developers to piece together hardware, network, and software components from multiple vendors in order to build a complete solution. As a result, this discontinuity is taking away from their ability to focus and execute the algorithms and applications within a specific medical domain. To help developers, VivaLNK created a Medical Sensor Platform designed to ease their job by integrating wearable sensors with data connectivity options for virtually any type of application.

VivaLNK has designed this new platform to aid healthcare solution providers and developers accelerate time-to-market by leveraging interoperable hardware and software components to capture patient data from any location and easily integrate that data with their applications for analysis at the edge or in the cloud.  The solution abstracts the wearable sensor, network, and data infrastructure from the application, which allows developers to focus on their specific domain such as heart failure detection, chemo treatment monitoring, and bedside patient monitoring. The sensors are abstracted from the application through a common protocol which makes integrating with multiple sensors simpler. In addition, ensuring reliable data transfer, such as during a network failure, between the sensor and application is handled within the protocol instead of requiring the developer to put in the application itself.

Another critical component of VivaLNK’s platform is the physical patch responsible for accurate sensor data collection. The first advantage of VivaLNK’s wearable patches is its comfort and ease-of-use for a consumer-oriented patient. Remote environments such as the home lack professional staff to ensure patient adherence. Implying if the patient doesn’t wear it, an RPM solution will not work. The second advantage is the medical grade nature of VivaLNK’s patch. Wrist-based wearables are user-friendly, but often have a shortcoming in accuracy and consistency for clinical use due to either inferior sensors or its method of contact with the body. For example, devices that are loosely applied can generate a large amount of signal noise. VivaLNK’s patch-based devices provide a higher quality signal through its optimal positioning and close adhesion on the body depending on the vital signs to be gathered. In addition, the quality of its ECG sensors is of higher medical grade over PPG sensors.

The ability to access hardware and data connectivity in a single platform solves a variety of issues for developers so they can focus on their specific domain. Just as open systems and APIs accelerated the development of applications in the computer IT industry, the same is happening in the medical world. This is the first and critical step towards enabling a new world of medical applications that are more compelling, cost-effective, and widely accessible.