FDA approves Masimo’s Tiny Breathing Sensor for Paediatric patients in U.S.

The RAS-45 acoustic respiration sensor, developed by Masimo, to function along with the Rainbow Acoustic Monitoring (RAM), was approved by the FDA for use in neonates and infant patients.

A minimum weight of 22pounds/10 kgs of the baby was required earlier to be eligible for use of RAM sensors. This requirement is no longer necessary for the new sanction that enables a convenient monitoring of the rate of respiration in very young pediatric patients.

This is possible because the maximum respiration rate in the sensor has been raised to 120 breaths per minute with an excellent precision between +/- breath every minute.

The sensor can be stuck on to the child and it is fitted with a microphone mimicking device that spots respiration sounds from other background sounds.

Its clarity enables pediatricians to listen to the breathing of the infant as if he/she is listening via a stethoscope. The sensor is stuck on the chest of neonates or infants and on the neck of adults.

 The RAS-45 is connected to a monitor that displays the ongoing respiratory rate and a waveform pattern which is a depiction of the breathing pattern of the child currently and in the earlier hours. The sensor can be interfaced with other sensors as well and the collective data is displayed on the monitor. 

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Easy Interoperability for all mHealth Apps

Several top tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and Salesforce have vowed to remove barriers which prevent customers from accessing their personal mHealth data whenever they need it. The announcement was made at the Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference held in Washington D.C.

Seema Verma, administrator of The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said, “Imagine all of that data aggregated in one place; Imagine if you could combine that with your genetic information, and that you would have the ability to take that information and give it to researchers, give it to your doctors?”

Last week, CMS released an updated on their new version of Blue Button 2.0, an open API tool which would enable around 53 million Medicare beneficiaries to access five years’ worth of their data.

Mark Scrimshire, who leads the Blue Button 2.0 announced, “We’re trying to create this ecosystem where app developers can go and create tools that are really useful for beneficiaries and hopefully for the wider patient population.” 

Seema Verma further added, “CMS is leading to support MyHealthEData by releasing more data and taking action to drive interoperability and patient control of their data; We are calling on (the) industry to follow our lead and step up to the challenge. It’s time for the rest of the industry to do its part. I have called on insurers to begin releasing claims data as we did with Blue Button 2.0 and make data available to patients.”

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Tooth Sensor Measures Intake of Sugar, Salt, Alcohol

Having an accurate record of food and alcohol intake is important for managing a number of diseases including diabetes, various cardiovascular conditions, and alcoholism. Currently, not much practical technology is available to do this aside from smartphone apps, and apps tend to be tedious and require constant vigilance of making sure to input all the data.

Researchers at Tufts University have developed an amazing new sensor, only 2 millimeters on a side, that can be attached to the tooth and measure and transmit readings about glucose, salt and alcohol intake. The device is a combination of a novel, unpowered chemical sensor coupled with RFID (radiofrequency ID) technology. This allows the device to work without requiring a battery, as readings are performed by bouncing RF waves off of it while a special device measures the nature of the returning signal.

The sensor consists of a material that absorbs the compounds to be measured, fattening in the process, and two square gold rings on the outside. As an analyte is absorbed, the gold rings move apart and the returning radio waves that bounce off of the device change accordingly.

Though the device has so far been developed to target a few specific analytes, in principle many others can also be measured. Additionally, it can be attached to the skin and perhaps be useful in measuring chemical composition of sweat, body temperature, and other parameters.

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New Sensor Detects Arsenic Contamination in One Min

According to WHO, around 140 million individuals consume arsenic contaminated water each year, which leads to the development of skin malignancy and harms IQ levels. Current arsenic detectors need diagnostic kits or the aid of laboratory scientists and takes up to half an hour to get the result.

Scientists from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial have developed a small, user-friendly, accurate and cost-effective sensor to test arsenic levels in drinking water within a minute. When a drop of water hits the test strip, it gives the arsenic level count digitally.

University and Science Minister, Sam Gyimah said, “This sensor, to detect harmful levels of water contamination, will make a huge difference across developing nations, potentially saving millions of lives.”

Professor Tony Cass from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial said, “It’s been a real journey to take an idea, conceived of at a London Centre for Nanotechnology research day, through proof of concept research, then into prototyping and scale up and now to field trials in Bangladesh. Now the technology has been spun out we can look forward to scale up of manufacture and ultimately deployment.”

Dr. David Sarphie, CEO of Bio Nano Consulting said, “We were doing some early-stage field trials a few months ago in Bangladesh and a lot of the villagers were actually pleading with us to come and measure their well because they had no idea how much arsenic was in their water.”

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Cytokine Sensor Shedding Light on the Brain

The brain is the most difficult part of the body to assess especially the level of signaling molecules called cytokines. Cytokines are secreted by glial cells, which could make up nearly 90% of all brain cells. Cytokines play a key role in controlling moods, cognition and behavior, which directly influences mental health.

As a result of in-depth research by a team of scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP), Macquarie University, University of Colorado Boulder, Central China Normal University and The University of Adelaide, a sensor which can predict cytokine levels in the brain has been developed for the first time.

The world’s first cytokine sensor consists of a modified optical fiber of which the surface is treated with a capture protein. The protein reacts to the presence of cytokine molecules which monitors its release in discrete and targeted parts of the brain.

"Our research in understanding cytokine secretion, neural circuits and how these two work together is essential to improving our understanding of the brain, in health and disease. Our sensor has opened a new window to the brain, but we still have far more to discover," says Professor Ewa Goldys, CNBP Deputy Director and a senior researcher of the project.

"It may be early days in this research but it will be fascinating to see where this cytokine detection takes us. It may prove to be a pivotal point in the understanding, and eventual diagnostic and clinical treatment, of a whole range of health conditions." says Prof Goldys.

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Invention of Sensor to Monitor High Risk Pregnancies

A research team at the Imperial College London have developed a new sensor-based device to display fetal movements and growth in high-risk pregnancies. This is an alternative to the current self-reporting system where the mothers notice changes in fetus movements and seek medical help if needed. But this current method is somewhat inaccurate and either makes mothers anxious or they don’t report the changes to their physicians properly.

Niamh Nowlan from the Imperial College London Department of Bioengineering said, “The movements of a baby in the womb, fetal movements, are an important sign of the baby’s health. However, there is currently no way to monitor fetal movements outside of a hospital.”

This new sensor monitors the baby based on its sounds and movements and can be worn for a longer duration. The system is embedded with acoustic sensors and accelerometers to differentiate the movements between baby and mother.

Nowlan further added, “Our device is the first to use acoustic sensors to detect movements. It is also unique in that it can account for movements of the mother, which other previously proposed sensors cannot. We believe that this is a key aspect of the technology that will lead to successful adoption in the clinic and home.”

The team believes that this wearable will enter the market within ten years.

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Scientists use Infrared Sensor as Means for Drug Discovery

Biophysicists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have used an infrared sensor to discover which active agents influence the structure of proteins rapidly and easily and calculate the amount of time the change persists.

Prof Dr. Klaus Gerwert and Dr. Jörn Güldenhaupt thus executed time-resolved measurements of the changes to the structure of protein scaffolds, caused by the active agents. Their methods look promising for the future development of drugs with minimum side effects.

A report on their research was published by the team, in the journal, Angewandte Chemie on May 17, 2018.

This novel technique offers information on structural changes in the protein in a matter of minutes, also displaying the type of structural change. The sensor works with the help of a crystal to which the protein is bound and infrared light can permeate through the crystal. Infrared spectra are read via the crystal, and the surface is bathed with solutions that may or may not contain active agents. The sensor detects variations to the spectral area of the protein. If any changes are noticed, it is evident that the active agent has distorted the shape of the protein.

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Alert Sensor App for Smokers

By tracking arm and body motion, it is possible to develop an automatic alert system to send video reminders about the benefits of quitting tobacco by using wearable sensor technology.

A research team from the Case Western Reserve University created the sensors to detect arm and body motions associated with smoking. The app then automatically sends 20 to 120-second video messages to smokers regarding the health and financial benefits of not smoking. 

The researchers claimed that this mobile alert system might be the first app which combines an existing online platform, mindfulness training and a personalized plan to quit smoking. They found that the technology demonstrated more than 98-percent accuracy in sensing “lighting up” from other similar motions. 

Ming-Chun Huang, an assistant electrical engineering and computer science professor who led the technical part of this study said, “We’ve been able to differentiate between a single motion, which could be confused with eating or drinking, and a sequence of motions more clearly linked to the act of smoking a cigarette.”

This system was tested last year by a research team of electrical engineering and computer science departments at the Case School of Engineering in association with a clinical psychologist at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.

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Is mHealth Monitoring for Hypertension Safer Than the Doctor’s Office?

New research suggests that using mHealth to monitor blood pressure may actually be more accurate and safer than blood pressure readings taken in a doctor’s office.

A study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that “white coat hypertension” or “white coat syndrome”– elevated blood pressure caused by being in a doctor’s office – can double one’s risk of death, compared to those whose blood pressure is normal. And it reportedly affects as much as 30 percent of the US population.

“White-coat hypertension is not benign," Dr. Haitham Ahmed, medical director of cardiac rehabilitation at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not a part of the study, told NBC News. "If seeing a white coat increases your blood pressure, a lot of other stressors in life are expected to as well.”

The results suggest that telehealth and remote patient monitoring programs that capture blood pressure readings at home not only produce a more accurate cardiovascular history, but they can also improve clinical outcomes by reducing stress.

The ten-year study of some 64,000 people in Spain, conducted by researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid, found that blood pressure readings taken at home with mHealth devices were 50 percent more accurate than readings taken at the doctor’s office.  

In addition, roughly 10 percent of those involved in the study showed elevated blood pressure readings when measured in the doctor’s office, the study found, yet exhibited normal readings when measured at home. Conversely, almost 4 percent exhibited normal readings in the doctor’s office, yet were found to have dangerously high blood pressure when monitored at home for 24 hours.

“White-coat hypertension was not benign,” the study concluded, “and masked hypertension was associated with a greater risk of death than sustained hypertension.”

"We don't want to dismiss white coat hypertension," Dr. Raymond Townsend, director of the hypertension program at Penn Medicine and author of a commentary accompanying the NEJM study, told NBC News. "We encourage our patients to do blood pressure readings at home. That is a good way to not only monitor blood pressure where you actually ‘live,’ but it also provides a lot of insight for patients to understand how life's little indiscretions, like take-out Chinese with extra soy sauce, can truly affect your blood pressure the next day."

Townsend further noted that research undertaken by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has found that ambulatory blood pressure monitoring “should be the reference standard” for identifying high blood pressure.

“This research is a clear game-changer,” Professor Bryan Williams, of University College London’s Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, told the London Telegraph. “(F)or the first time, it definitively shows that blood pressure measured regularly during a 24 hour period predicts the risk of heart disease, stroke and death much better than blood pressure measured in a doctor’s surgery or clinic.”

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mHealth App Aims to Help Caregivers Identify Perinatal Depression

A new mHealth app aims to help obstetricians by giving them a mobile health resource to detect and manage depression in pregnant woman and new mothers.

Developed at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and University of Massachusetts Medical School, the app – called Lifeline4Moms - is designed as a resource for obstetricians and other care providers in identifying perinatal depression, which affects 14 percent of women and is considered the most common complication of pregnancy.

“Perinatal depression is a major problem,” Bengisu Tulu, an associate professor of business at WPI’s Foisie Business School and the app’s creator, said in a press release issued by WPI. “By using Lifeline4Moms during an office visit with a patient, obstetric caregivers can map out a treatment plan and help the patient make an appointment with a counselor, for example, to increase the likelihood that the patient will actually follow up and get the mental health care she needs.”

Tulu said the mobile health tool is designed to help maternal care providers who might not have the psychiatric expertise to identify perinatal depression. As such, it’s meant to be a resource and not a clinical decision support tool.  It lists the symptoms of mild, moderate and severe depression and offers suggestions for treatment paths and guidance on how to talk with the patient about mental health needs.

The app, which was tested with resident obstetricians at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and previewed at last November’s American Medical Informatics Association meeting, is among a growing number of mHealth and telehealth resources available for soon-to-be and new mothers as well as their care providers.

Last October, the nearby Massachusetts General Hospital’s Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women's Mental Health unveiled the MGH Perinatal Depression Scale (MGHPDS), a free iPhone app designed to help new mothers cope with postpartum depression and give researchers access to patient-generated data to help in identifying and treating the issue.

"Those who download the app and complete the included questionnaires may also consent to share their scores with researchers within our center here at MGH, further assisting in the development of an even shorter scale with greater specificity than what is currently available," Lee S. Cohen, MD, director of the Ammon-Pinizzotto Center and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said in a press release. "It is our hope that - as screening for PPD becomes increasingly common across the US and globally - easy-to-use tools like the MGHPDS, which can be readily used on smartphones and other digital devices, will lead to more accurate screening of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and to improved clinical outcomes for patients."

In other cases, apps have been designed to help pregnant women and new mothers access resources on pregnancy and parenting tips and to help healthcare providers monitor pregnant women susceptible to or who have developed gestational diabetes.

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ResearchKit Study to Test Smartphones’ mHealth Value in Eye Studies

Novartis wants to know if smartphones are good enough to be used in eye studies.

The pharma giant has launched a new project on Apple’s ResearchKit platform to gather data on how smartphones can be used in ophthalmology programs. Through the new FocalView app, company executives are looking to determine what data can be gathered from consumers, as well as whether that data is reliable enough to be used by clinicians.

"Because patients with eye diseases are often not as mobile, FocalView has the potential to offer tremendous benefit for the ophthalmic community and for researchers looking to develop better treatments for these patients," Dr. Mark Bullimore, Dean of the Southern California College of Optometry at Marshall B. Ketchum University and a medical advisor to Novartis for the app’s development, said in a press release. "Collating validated patient-reported outcomes in clinical trial research is no longer a nice-to-have. This kind of data is fast becoming a critical element of research and development, because it offers a better reflection of real-world patient experiences, fosters better patient compliance and provides researchers with richer and more accurate data points."

Novartis officials say the app will be tested for its efficacy and ease of use, as well as its ability to attract a wide range of participants and deliver documents for research trials, such as consent forms.

“By adapting the design of clinical trials to suit the daily routine of patients, the app may reduce barriers to participation, leading to a more nuanced understanding of ophthalmic diseases and potentially accelerating the development of novel treatments,” the company said.

Apple’s ResearchKit platform, launched in 2015 to focus on the clinical trials sector, has been used in dozens of studies, on topics ranging from chronic diseases to population health issues like moods and mental health issues, LGBT health and health issues faced by NFL athletes after they retire.

Novartis, which launched a ResearchKit study in August 2017 to gather insights on care management for people with multiple sclerosis, is among a growing group of pharma interests looking to leverage Apple’s digital health platform for chronic disease and population health studies. GlaxoSmithKline launched its own app in 2016 targeting people dealing with rheumatoid arthritis, while Pfizer launched an app last year for people with lupus.

The idea of using digital health tools in ophthalmology is a hot topic, particularly in consumer-facing programs. Lawmakers in several states have banned or are considering banning online eye exams, or ocular telehealth, over fears that the technology isn’t reliable enough to be used for clinical purposes.

On the opposite side of the argument are companies like Opternative and 1-800 Contacts, who offer online and app-enabled eye exams. They’ve formed a lobbying group, called Americans for Vision Care Innovation, and Opternative is appealing a U.S. District Court judge’s decision to toss the company’s lawsuit against South Carolina’s Eye Care Consumer Protection Law.

Federal reaction to the dispute is mixed. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has sent a letter to Washington state lawmakers considering a ban on ocular telehealth, saying such a move would unfairly restrict consumers in accessing eye care services. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, has sent a letter to Opternative warning that its online eye exam technology hasn’t yet been approved under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

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mHealth app for clinical decision support improves diagnosis time, test ordering

Mobile health (mHealth) applications for clinical decision support could improve physicians’ test ordering and diagnosis decisions, according to a study published April 20 in the Journal of Informatics in Health and Biomedicine.

In this study, researchers evaluated the PTT Advisor app developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Clinical Laboratory Integration into Healthcare Collaborative (CLIHC). Researchers look at its impact on laboratory test ordering and diagnosis decisions. Physician feedback was also evaluated.

“There are increasingly more physician-focused health apps available, and while physicians are becoming more comfortable using these apps, they don’t necessarily know which ones can help with diagnosis because they haven’t been evaluated,” said lead author Ashley Meyer, assistant professor of medicine at Baylor and researcher in the Houston Veterans Affairs Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (IQuESt). “Test ordering and diagnosis for certain hematologic disorders is particularly difficult for physicians. The team at the CDC’s Clinical Laboratory Integration into Healthcare Collaborative developed PTT Advisor to address these issues and approached our research group to conduct an evaluation.”

To test the app, researchers created eight patient vignettes with normal prothrombin times (PT) and abnormal partial thromboplastin times (PTT). Physicians ordered tests and made diagnosis decisions for four of the vignettes using either PTT Advisor or conventional clinical decision support. Physicians were then interviewed on perceptions of the app’s usefulness.

Results from the total 368 vignettes showed that accuracy and testing decisions increased 13 percent compared to cases using traditional decision support. Additionally, using the app helped physicians make diagnosis 51 seconds faster—a 22 percent reduction of diagnosis time.

“Our results underscore several important policy implications to consider as healthcare apps are increasingly adopted,” concluded Meyer and colleagues. “A multitude of mobile applications have been created to support physicians in their diagnostic decision-making, but few have been evaluated in terms of how they improve test ordering and diagnostic decision-making performance. While our methods were able to test clinical decision making and potential impact on patient care, most apps do not undergo similar testing. Physicians thus currently have no way of knowing which apps are useful and which are not trustworthy. All of these factors might limit app usefulness in the real world.”

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mHealth Program Uses Smartphones to Monitor Medication Adherence

An mHealth platform in which patients use their smartphones to record themselves taking prescribed medications could boost adherence rates and save public health programs hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

JHU’s School of Medicine has published the results of a recent study in which the mobile health platform boosted medication adherence rates to 94 percent among tuberculosis patients managed by three Baltimore-area public health agencies. The study also showed a savings of almost $1,400 in treatment costs per patient.

“It is critical for patients to take tuberculosis medication as prescribed, since nonadherence can lead to the development of antibiotic resistance or spread of this highly contagious and potentially deadly disease,” Robert C. Bollinger, MD, MPH, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and creator of the app – called emocha – used in the study, said in a press release issued by the Baltimore-based startup. “These findings support new strategies to ensure clinically-effective and patient-centric treatment of tuberculosis.”

The study of an mHealth technique known as video directly observed therapy (VDOT), published in the online journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases, builds on the value of a digital health platform proving popular with community health clinics and public health offices dealing with population health concerns like tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other conditions that require medication.

Healthcare providers typically rely on in-person meetings to make sure patients are taking their prescribed medications (directly observed therapy, of DOT). With public health programs or community clinics serving disadvantaged populations, that regimen is difficult to uphold – meetings are skipped or missed, medications aren’t taken, and the patient’s health doesn’t improve or deteriorates, leading to increased treatment costs.

With an mHealth app that allows a patient to use a smartphone to record himself or herself taking a prescribed medication at a specific time, providers can better track and manage medication adherence regardless of where provider and patient are located. One provider can also keep track of a larger group of patients.

For the study, funded by a Small Business Innovation Research grant awarded to emocha by the National Institute of Health, researchers monitored 28 tuberculosis patients of public health departments in Maryland’s Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties and Baltimore between March 2016 and August 2017.

According to researchers, healthcare providers involved in the study said they could observe more doses using emocha, including those taken on weekends and holidays, thus improving adherence and possibly reducing treatment time. Those providers also indicated that VDOT gave them more time to spend on other duties, like contact investigations, patient counseling and social support.

VDOT made headlines late last year when Houston-area healthcare providers reported success in using the emocha platform to manage medication adherence for tuberculosis patients during and after Hurricane Harvey. With many patients unable to reach a clinic or meet with healthcare providers, those providers used the app to make sure their patients were taking their medications.

“This tool proved to be very beneficial,” Dana Wiltz-Beckham, the tuberculosis elimination program manager in Harris County Public Health’s Disease Control and Clinical Prevention Department, told mHealthIntelligence.com. “There was no interruption of treatment here.”

With backing from Johns Hopkins and the NIH, emocha has built its business on monitoring patients dealing with issues like TB and Hepatitis C. And that platform is expanding. The company can also work with providers on HIV treatment, monitoring outbreaks, and in smoking cessation programs. Last June, the company announced plans to expand into opioid addiction treatment, armed with a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Mayo Clinic’s new mHealth app to detect Epilepsy

Mayo Clinic researchers found success with an mHealth app - EpiFinder, which can diagnose Epilepsy (A disruption in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, causing seizures). During recent research conducted at Mayo Clinic, the Epifinder app recognized epilepsy in almost 87percent of the cases.

“The app examines data that is entered into the platform by the clinicians or patients”, said founder Neel Mehta. It’s one of several mHealth devices being used to improve care for people living with epilepsy.

mHealth experts say sensor-embedded wearables can help clinicians to monitor patients dealing with any chronic conditions, like Parkinson’s disease, congestive heart failure, COPD, and diabetes. By examining data collected by the sensors and comparing this along with other factors such as diet, work-out, moods and even weather, it can decide what causes events like seizures, warn patients when they’re moving toward such an event and adjust care plans to improve overall health.

In the Mayo Clinic study, 57 patients were monitored at the clinic’s Epilepsy Monitoring Unit in Arizona. 53 patients suffered seizures at that time. Using video-EEG (cVEEG) monitoring, doctors found that 26 patients suffered epileptic seizures, while 27 received a different diagnosis. Doctors then entered the information on each seizure into the app. In all, the app accurately identified epilepsy or a different diagnosis in 46 cases.

 “The initial testing of the EpiFinder algorithm suggests possible utility in distinguishing between an epilepsy syndrome and an alternative diagnosis in adult patients,” the researchers, led by Erin M. Okazaki, concluded.

They also noted that the app needs more vetting since their research only used doctors who were well-versed in epilepsy treatment. “Further screening of the app among non-epilepsy-specific providers will be important to assess if the current method for gathering data is universally applicable”.

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Schizophrenia Treatment Simplified Using mHealth Tools

A pioneering mHealth program has found favor with mobile health advocates. The stated program is anticipated to be useful in the treatment of people suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Washington pointed to the fact that the effectiveness of an in-person treatment program can be matched by a credible mobile health platform that integrates daily touches and weekly clinical interactions.

The research brings into comparison the FOCUS app, a development of Dartmouth College’s Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, with the Wellness Recovery Action Program (WRAP), a widely-used, clinic-based, self-management intervention program led by trained facilitators. The program had the enrollment of some 165 patients and evaluations were conducted before and after the program and six months later.

Daily messages and self-assessment surveys are received by those using the FOCUS app, sent to the mental healthcare provider of the patient for reference in weekly phone calls. The findings of the study published in Psychiatric Services state that treatment was commenced by 90 percent of those using the mHealth app while 58 percent of those enrolled in WRAP seeking help. Additionally, it was seen that 56 percent of the participants in FOCUS were fully engaged in treatment after eight weeks as compared to 40 percent in the WRAP group.  

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mHealth Wearable Effective in Detecting AFib, STSI Study Finds

Results of the much-anticipated 2016 Scripps Translational Science Institute's (STSI) mSToPS study on 5000 individuals revealed that an mHealth wearable is three times more efficient in diagnosing atrial fibrillation than the traditional screening tests advised by a doctor.

Results of this pioneering study, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association(JAMA), validate the efficacy of home-based digital health tools in detecting arterial fibrillation.

In a press release Steven Steinhubl, MD, STSI’s director of digital medicine and an associate professor at The Scripps Research Institute said “Our study shows an almost threefold improvement in the rate of diagnosis of AFib in those actively monitored compared to usual care.

The mSToPS study was launched by STSI in collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceuticals to compare conventional cardiac monitoring with remote monitoring by iRhythm’s Zio patch for ECH screening.

The 5,214 individuals recruited through Aetna’s fully insured commercial and Medicare health plans for this year-long study, witnessed new cases of AF in 6.3 percent of those using the mHealth patch, in contrast to 2.4 percent of the controlled population.

 “This study demonstrates the utility of a digital approach not only to diagnosing asymptomatic AFib but to the clinical research field as a whole,” Steinhubl said in the press release. “We hope that it will set a precedent for future real-world, participant-centric clinical trials that leverage the power of digital medicine technologies.”

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