Neuchâtel, November 1st, 2019 – Aktiia, a Swiss-US startup that develops optical blood pressure monitors at the wrist, has concluded the analysis of the data of a clinical trial comparing cuffless optical blood pressure measurements at the wrist against invasive references. The results have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Blood Pressure Monitoring, with the conclusion that Aktiia’s optical technology is capable of replacing more traditional methods of blood pressure measurement such as cuffs.

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Since its incorporation in 2018, Aktiia has focused on the development of a library of algorithms for the continuous 24/7 monitoring of blood pressure. The Aktiia algorithms only require input signals acquired from off-the-shelf optical sensors at the wrist: the same sensors that are today used in wearable devices to measure heart rate. This technology is expected to be a key element for the deployment of cuffless devices for the 24/7 monitoring of blood pressure.

The idea of an algorithm for cuffless blood pressure monitoring that processes signals from optical sensors has been explored in the past. However, the performance of existing solutions has only been partially assessed, or has been tested in very controlled conditions against dubious reference measurements. Aktiia believes that the development and further deployment of cuffless blood pressure technologies requires thorough experimental investigations involving measurement of ground-truth blood pressure values, including invasive measurements. Intensive care units represent an ethical and compelling environment for such investigations.

In February 2019, Aktiia SA joined efforts with Dr. Cyril Pellaton and his team in the Hôpital Neuchâtelois, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to initiate a clinical trial. After approval from Swissmedic and the local Ethical Committee, the investigators enrolled 30 critical patients elected for radial arterial catherization at the intensive care unit. After inclusion, the team recorded ground-truth blood pressure measurements at the radial artery simultaneously to optical signals acquired at the contralateral wrist by a prototype of the Aktiia wearable device. Further details of the investigation protocol have already been disclosed at ClinicalTrials.gov, under the registration number NCT03837769.

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Today, Dr. Pellaton and Aktiia SA announce the conclusion of the analysis of the compiled data and its publication in the peer-reviewed journal Blood Pressure Monitoring. The obtained results provide clear and compelling evidence on the reliability and accuracy of the OBPM technology compared to currently accepted methods of blood pressure measurement. This is a major milestone in the clinical activities of company, contributing toward the company’s mission to bring easy, painless blood pressure monitoring to daily life.

About Aktiia

Aktiia was founded in Switzerland in May 2018 out of a passion to create the best tool for diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. Aktiia’s founders, Mattia Bertschi (CEO) and Josep Solà (CTO), previously contributed to research and development at CSEM, a prestigious Swiss research institute. For 15 years they worked day in and day out to understand the language of our heart signals and decode key markers to gain better insight into blood pressure. They built an incredible team of 15 employees and founded Aktiia to turn their years of pioneering work into a useful tool for people around the globe.

Aktiia’s technology combines common optical sensors and proprietary clinically tested algorithms to measure blood pressure at the wrist. Validated through extensive trials in acute and low-acute settings, its accuracy has received worldwide acknowledgement, enabling Aktiia to proudly offer the most complete and user-friendly blood pressure companion to date. With one third of adults globally suffering from hypertension, this mission is more urgent than ever.

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Digital ECG maker AliveCor is partnering up with Chinese wearable maker Huami to combine the technologies of each company to deliver a new generation of medical functionality to wearable devices.

“AliveCor's Intelligent, medical grade, heart care platform will be a key component of Huami smart watches and heart trackers going forward. Our new partnership is critical to building these as well as entirely new medical grade services,” said Wang Huang, CEO of Huami.

Read more AliveCor Raises $5.8 Million in New Funds, SEC Filing Reveals

This agreement encompasses the licensing of AliveCor technology and an agreement to work together to bring new devices and services to market. The companies expect that the alliance will deliver entirely new ECG form factors to global markets in 2020, said AliveCor in a press release.

“AliveCor's agreement with Huami achieves our corporate goal of delivering AliveCor's AI driven subscription services and solutions to enterprise customers and consumers worldwide at affordable price points. AliveCor technology allows partners to easily deliver clinically validated, peer-reviewed medical features to their own customers, at scale,” said AliveCor CEO Priya Abani.

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Read more Huami and Timex Group Announce Partnership to Develop Innovative Wearables

About Huami

Founded in Hefei, China in 2013, Huami is the largest wearable device company worldwide with over 50 million units sold today and 17.1% global market share. Huami is also the exclusive provider of wearable technology for Xiaomi and maker of the Mi Band. In 2018, Huami shipped 27.5 million units of smart wearable devices. Huami has one of the largest biometric and activity databases in the global smart wearables industry.

About AliveCor

Mountain View, CA-based Mobile ECG maker AliveCor focuses on single- and six-lead smartphone ECGs and AI-based reading interpretations. The company’s FDA-cleared KardiaMobile is the most clinically validated personal ECG solution in the world. KardiaMobile provides instant detection of Atrial Fibrillation, Bradycardia, Tachycardia, and Normal rhythm in an ECG. Kardia is the first AI enabled platform to aid patients and clinicians in the early detection of atrial fibrillation, the most common arrhythmia and one associated with a five times greater risk of stroke. AliveCor was named the No.1 artificial intelligence company in Fast Company's Top 50 Most Innovative Companies.

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Back pain is the most common cause of disability worldwide, and it’s also the number two reason for doctor visits, and most common reason for missed work. One in four kids by age 15 will be affected by back pain. Australian company Posture360 wants to change all that. The first ever integrated posture and technology company launched their Expression of Interest campaign with Birchal, giving people the opportunity to invest in a portion of the company alongside their experienced angel investors, professionals, and venture capital firms like Samsung Ventures.

Read more LEX Wearable Chair Lets You Sit Wherever You Want and Also Enhances Your Posture

Birchal is an equity crowdfunding platform that gives everyday investors the opportunity to own a share in the future of Posture360 and take part of the company’s exciting upside potential.

“We are on a mission to change the way the world sits, sleeps, and moves to fight the war on backpain and become the authority on posture worldwide,” said Posture 360 in a press release.

Posture360 is a vertically integrated technology company that designs, manufactures, and sells connected posture products. Already generating over $2M in revenue, the release of PostureWear is set to expand globally.

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The company’s posture products are smart, providing function, comfort, and style. Their fully integrated PostureWear gets your back into natural alignment while providing real-time analytics to monitor your postural habits and patterns throughout the day.

Insurance companies, hospitals, and sports also benefit by way of the company’s SaaS platform helping clients, patients, and athletes prevent future injury and find relief.

As experienced sellers with existing relationships in the health and wellness space, Posture360 is also preparing to receive endorsements from professional athletes. In parallel, limited trials on our SaaS platform will be performed with industry partners providing a free service for a limited time, and then charging per user and access to advanced data features.

Read more French Gait Rehabilitation Provider FeetMe Raises €9.4M in Series A funding

Final development of the shirt now complete. The sensors and accuracy is ready for commercial rollout.

“We're raising funds to launch PostureWear and grow our sales and marketing team to capitalize on the significant market opportunities that are awaiting us,” the company said.

Percentage of profits will go towards charity, specific to those in need of spinal surgeries.

Rollout is set for Australia and South Korea and once established, the USA, South East Asia, and then Europe and other parts of Asia.

The campaign will go live to the public on November 18^th.

French healthcare company known for developing elegantly designed, medical-grade health devices, launched two platforms for healthcare professionals. The two platforms – Withings MED PRO DATA and Withings MED PRO CARE – are designed to meet the needs of medical professionals, institutions, payers, disease management programs, coaching platforms and researchers, allowing Withings devices and data analytics to be brought into third-party ecosystems.

Read more Withings Launches Two New iPhone-Connected Blood Pressure Monitors

Withings’ devices capture 20 vital health parameters such as blood pressure, ECG, weight, heart rate, activity levels and sleep patterns.

Withings Med Pro Data is a customizable solution that allows third-party companies such as behavior change programs, and researchers to use Withings products to collect, analyze and display data for their users within their own software and app environments. This platform is tailored to fit the needs of partners ranging from disease/wellness coaching programs, clinical and academic researchers, pharmaceutical companies, corporate wellness programs and medical institutions.

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Withings Med Pro Care is a remote patient monitoring platform that allows health professionals, medical institutions and private organizations to easily access and manage physiological data of multiple patients. As well as saving time and money through reduced clinical visits, Withings Med Pro Care improves the efficiency of care teams while also streamlining communications with participating patients. Within tailored, partner-specific interactive dashboards, physicians are able to visualize aggregated and individual patient data in real-time and in one place. They are able to customize the health data parameters they wish to track as well as how and when they receive information and alerts. Health Mate, patients can receive direct messages from their caregivers, including reminders to take and share measurements, all within a secure, HIPAA compliant platform.

Read more Withings Move ECG Debuts at CES 2019

“Data is the key to improving nearly every aspect of our healthcare system, from better patient outcomes to improved efficiencies and reduced costs,” said Eric Carreel, founder of Withings. “With our decade of experience and work to create connected health devices that people can easily use daily to monitor and improve their health levels, we are in a unique position to be able to help the medical and health community better serve and understand their patients and customers. Withings MED PRO allows us to serve these individuals and organizations in a saleable, flexible way to bring the benefits of the health tech revolution to a broader spectrum of patients.”

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CareWear Corp is a privately held firm based in Nevada that has successfully led through innovation in printed light to advance wearable care for athletes, prosumers and consumers. CareWear has been awarded 66 global patents in addition to receiving international recognition in Optical Engineering (2018 SPIE Startup Challenge Winner), IoT/Wearable Technology (2019 IOT/WT Innovation World Cup® Finalist), and Sports Wearables (2019 WT ISPO Sports Disruptor).

CareWear has developed the first wearable, wireless printed light patches for athletes, prosumers and consumers. CareWear’s light patches are designed to relieve pain, decrease inflammation, accelerate recovery, and improve performance while reducing the likelihood of injury from overuse and muscle fatigue as demonstrated in published research.

CareWear’s medical grade products are FDA registered and available without a prescription, offering a safe, affordable, drug-free therapy solution. Rather than restricting treatments to a clinic or training room, injury and pain relief is now mobile and can be completed during training, at home, or on-the-go in as little as 30 minutes per day. The products are used by professional, collegiate and USA teams, military academies and special forces soldiers.

In the course of this year´s WT | Wearable Technologies Show at MEDICA on Nov 18-21, we have asked CareWear a few questions about their current process of getting CE marking and future steps and goals of the company.

How was the process of getting CE marking for CareWear?

• A CE mark certificate is required to legally market medical devices in the EU. This must comply with the European Medical Devices Regulation (MDR 2017/745).
• Obtaining CE marking has been significantly more challenging as a result of changes to the regulations based on updated requirements in the areas of biocompatibility and clinical performance. This has created a significant backlog and has extended the timelines for approval of new products.
• We have completed all of our audits with our notified body and expect a CE mark certificate by the end of 2019.

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What does it mean for you to be CE compliant?

• It means our products have undergone extensive safety testing to the appropriate IEC standards for our Class 2a over-the-counter (OTC) medical device under the MDR, and that the clinical, biocompatibility and safety data provided substantiates the indications for use and labeling and safety requirements.
• It provides the opportunity to commercially market quality medical devices in the EU for safe and effective use by medical practitioners, sports professionals and medical consumers.

What are your next steps and goals for 2020?

• Prosumer marketing in the USA
• Export our products to Canada and Australia where we have established distribution relationships
• Establish new distribution relationships in specific target markets that accept CE or FDA compliance in the professional and consumer OTC markets.

What do you expect from the WT | Wearable Technologies Show at MEDICA?

• CareWear expects to begin sales in the EU and selected global markets in the first quarter of 2020. We plan to establish distribution relationships through contacts we make at WT MEDICA in the professional rehabilitation, sports and consumer markets.

Curious to learn more? Visit CareWear at the WT | Wearable Technologies Show at MEDICA on November 18-21 in Hall 13 Booth D46.

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John Hancock has unveiled a new wearable program called Aspire, the first of its kind life insurance designed specifically for Americans living with diabetes. The program is a unique collaboration between John Hancock and Verily, the healthcare division of Google parent company Alphabet, and will leverage the capabilities of Onduo, a virtual diabetes clinic.

Read more Fitbit and Health2Synch Partner Up for Diabetes Management

An estimated 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year. Of the more than 30 million Americans living with diabetes, half either don't have enough life insurance or don't have any life insurance coverage at all. Many worry they won't qualify for a life insurance policy because they have diabetes, and if they can secure coverage they are worried it's too expensive, said a press release.

With John Hancock Aspire people living with diabetes get the protection of life insurance paired with a technology-enabled program that provides coaching, clinical support, education, and rewards designed to help manage and improve their health. All John Hancock Aspire customers will also have access to an enhanced version of John Hancock Vitality, which is designed to reward steps customers take toward living longer, healthier lives, like exercise and buying healthy food, and now offers opportunities specific to the diabetes journey. Members have the potential to save up to 25% on their premiums, the company said.

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Qualifying John Hancock Aspire customers with type 2 diabetes will be eligible to access Onduo's virtual clinic and receive a blood glucose monitoring device which, when used in conjunction with the Onduo app, provide insights into the user's diabetes management.

Read more Vitality and New Strategic Partners Focus on Diabetes Prevention and Management and Financial Wellness

“This dynamic partnership with John Hancock unlocks the full potential for the Onduo platform, empowering people living with Type 2 diabetes to co-produce their own health at home and in mobile environments and rewards them for doing so,” Verily CEO Andy Condrad said during an event in Manhattan to announce the new partnership. “Through this initiative, Verily and John Hancock are pushing the envelope on the role life insurance can play in both providing financial security and helping people live longer, healthier lives.”

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Engineers at the ASE, a Chinese semiconductor company, have drastically improved their IC semiconductor packaging and development and create state-of-the-art microchips with the help of ANSYS Customization Toolkit (ACT) solution. ACT enables engineers to create more accurate models, enhance structural reliability and slash design time to enable customers to receive products faster than ever.

Read more Mendix Named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multiexperience Development Platforms

“ASE is committed to constructing a complete solution for developing IC packaging technology, strengthening design and high-yield manufacturing,” said C.P. Hung, vice president, corporate R&D, ASE Group. “We are very pleased to have a long-term collaboration with ANSYS. The automated analysis technology developed by ACT is the first step in developing future intelligent analysis and design, converting converse complex manual analysis into an automatic search process for potentially critical areas such as cracking, interface delamination and more. ACT will bring more opportunities for advanced packaging and system-level design to the market and accelerate customer product launches.”

With the process of IC manufacturing becoming more complex, companies have shifted focus to product design and dedicate less development time to simulation. To improve the IC packaging and development process, engineers must quickly create models that span countless scenarios to identify design problems and boost product performance, says a press release.

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ASE has developed ANSYS ACT workflow, a streamlined sub-modeling automation solution that enhances the IC packaging and development process. This workflow drastically reduces human error by converting complex manual analyses into an automatic search process to identify critical reliability issues such as cracking and interface delamination. This enables ASE engineers to swiftly create highly precise models, rapidly determine the optimal solution, identify problematic parts and reduce overall development time by 30%.

“ASE's ACT solution provides a simple and highly intuitive development environment, enabling engineers to effectively use existing simulation tools to radically increase their productivity and take their IC packaging and development process to the next level,” said John Lee, vice president and general manager, ANSYS. “Spanning a product's entire lifecycle, ASE's ACT automated workflow creates game-changing breakthroughs in semiconductor packaging processes to deliver unparalleled customer support.”

Read more Eccrine Systems Will Expand R&D Capabilities to Accelerate Development of Wearable Sweat Sensors

Ansys Inc. is an American public company based in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. It develops and markets engineering simulation software. If you've ever seen a rocket launch, flown on an airplane, driven a car, used a computer, touched a mobile device, crossed a bridge or put on wearable technology, chances are you've used a product where ANSYS software played a critical role in its creation.

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According to the latest report by Fortune Business Insights, the hearing aids market was valued at USD 8.38 Billion in 2018 and is anticipated to reach USD 14.45 Billion by the end of 2026. The market is expected to rise at a CAGR of 7.2%.

In 2018, Starkey Hearing Technologies changed the way hearing aids are manufactured when it introduced Livio AI. The updated hearing aid uses artificial intelligence (AI) and integrated sensors, and it was the first device to trace cognitive health and physical activity as measured by hearing aid for utilizing in social situations. Innovations like helped boost the hearing aids market, according to the report.

The report is based on primary and secondary research methods and provides an in-depth global hearing aids market analysis. The report covers all important aspects of the market such as growth drivers, restraints, trends, and opportunities, says a press release.

As per the report, the hearing devices segment is currently dominating the market because of its numerous advantages. These include flexibility for patients with both mild and moderate hearing loss, easily removable, cost-effective, and can be used during sports activities as well.

The rising prevalence of hearing disorders is a major factor behind the growth of hearing aids market. An estimated 900 million people worldwide are likely to suffer from hearing loss by the end of 2050, according to a study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019.

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Another factor promoting the market growth is the rise in the geriatric population. Besides this, governments are taking initiatives such as health benefit programs, awareness programs, setting up more ENT clinics, and others and this is also anticipated to boost the global market in the coming years.

However, term use of hearing aids may cause moisture in the ears or ear wax, and feedback problems. Moreover, the wrong size hearing aid may also result in handling problems. Therefore, manufacturers are focusing on production of a cleaning kit in order to maintain the cleanliness of these hearing devices. This may create lucrative growth opportunities for the market in the forecast period.

The report states North America to emerge as one of the dominant regions in the global hearing aids market.

Read more Lifestyles of Baby Boomers are Transforming the Way Tech Companies Upgrade Hearing Aids

In Europe, the number of aging populations in countries like Germany, France, and UK are expected to promote the market in Europe and help this region grow significantly in the forecast period. On the other side, the surge in disposable incomes of people across Asia Pacific is estimated to boost the hearing aids market in China and India. The rise in awareness about hearing disorders and the availability of cures and devices for improving hearing ability will help the market in the region grow rapidly

Key Companies Covered in Hearing Aids Market Research Report are Sivantos Pte. Ltd., Cochlear Ltd., Sonova, Starkey, MED-EL, Medtronic, GN Store Nord A/S, Widex A/S, among others

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Leading research and advisory firm Gartner highlighted the top strategic technology trends that organizations need to explore in 2020. Findings were presented during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, which took place last week.

According to Gartner, a strategic technology trend is one with substantial disruptive potential that is beginning to break out of an emerging state into broader impact and use, or which is rapidly growing with a high degree of volatility reaching tipping points over the next five years, reports Business Wire.

“People-centric smart spaces are the structure used to organize and evaluate the primary impact of the Gartner top strategic technology trends for 2020,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow.

The top 10 strategic technology trends as Gartner predicts for 2020 are:

Hyperautomation

Hyperautomation is the combination of multiple machine learning (ML), packaged software and automation tools to deliver work. Understanding the range of automation mechanisms, how they relate to one another and how they can be combined and coordinated is a major focus for hyperautomation.

Multiexperience

Through 2028, the user experience will undergo a significant shift in how users perceive the digital world and how they interact with it. Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) are changing the way in which people perceive the digital world. This combined shift in both perception and interaction models leads to the future multisensory and multimodal experience.

Read more How IoT is Shaping the Smart Cities of Tomorrow

Democratization of Expertise

Democratization is focused on providing people with access to technical expertise (e.g. ML, application development) or business domain expertise (e.g. sales process, economic analysis) via a radically simplified experience and without requiring extensive and costly training. Through 2023, Gartner expects four key aspects of the democratization trend to accelerate, including democratization of data and analytics, democratization of development, democratization of design and democratization of knowledge (non-IT professionals gaining access to tools and expert).

Human Augmentation

Human augmentation explores how technology can be used to deliver cognitive and physical improvements as an integral part of the human experience. Over the next 10 years increasing levels of physical and cognitive human augmentation will become prevalent as individuals seek personal enhancements.

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Transparency and Traceability

Consumers are increasingly demanding control of their valuable information. Organizations recognize the increasing risk of securing and managing personal data, and governments are implementing strict legislation to ensure they do. Transparency and traceability are critical elements to support these digital ethics and privacy needs.

The Empowered Edge

Edge computing is a computing topology in which information processing and content collection and delivery are placed closer to the sources, repositories and consumers of this information. It tries to keep the traffic and processing local to reduce latency, exploit the capabilities of the edge and enable greater autonomy at the edge.

Read more Wearable Devices to Help Improve Performance and Safety in a Fleet

Distributed Cloud

A distributed cloud is the distribution of public cloud services to different locations while the originating public cloud provider assumes responsibility for the operation, governance, updates to and evolution of the services.

Autonomous Things

Autonomous things are physical devices that use AI to automate functions previously performed by humans. The most recognizable forms of autonomous things are robots, drones, autonomous vehicles/ships and appliances.

Practical Blockchain

Blockchain has the potential to reshape industries by enabling trust, providing transparency and enabling value exchange across business ecosystems, potentially lowering costs, reducing transaction settlement times and improving cash flow.

AI Security

AI and ML will continue to be applied to augment human decision making across a broad set of use cases. While this creates great opportunities to enable hyperautomation and leverage autonomous things to deliver business transformation, it creates significant new challenges for the security team and risk leaders with a massive increase in potential points of attack with IoT, cloud computing, microservices and highly connected systems in smart spaces. Security and risk leaders should focus on three key areas — protecting AI-powered systems, leveraging AI to enhance security defense, and anticipating nefarious use of AI by attackers.

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Integrated Device Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of Renesas Electronics Corporation, introduced a fully integrated all-in-one biosensor module for mobile and wearable devices. The smallest sensor of its kind, OB1203 Sensor module integrates a multi-channel light sensor (LS), a proximity sensor (PS) and a photoplethysmography sensor (PPG). This module comes in a tiny, optically-enhanced package at only 4.2 mm x 2 mm x 1.2 mm, and includes two LEDs, drivers, the sensors and a signal conditioning chip.

Read more Wearable Biosensors Help Wound Healing Process by Mimicking Skin

A key feature of the OB1203 is its antiallergenic glass cover, which allows it to be used in applications requiring direct skin contact. An additional advantage of the OB1203 is the ability to operate when covered with IR-inked glass, allowing product designers to almost entirely conceal the OB1203 for a cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing product design, says a press release.

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A major application of the device is in smart phones or other mobile devices to enable brightness control of display panels. OB1203 can also determine proximity of nearby objects in order to support the deactivation of touch screen displays during phone calls.

The OB1203 comes with clinical-grade heart rate (HR) and SP02 algorithms, an easily customized Android app, and only requires power and three data lines to operate.

Read more Printed Electronics Paves the Way for Bandages, Electric Tattoos and Biosensors

“Our OB1203 is the most advanced biosensor for front and upward facing applications, such as in mobile and wearable devices,” said Rudi Hechfellner, director of sensing technology at IDT. “Unlike other sensor technologies, the OB1203 can operate behind IR cover ink so that the sensor components are virtually invisible. This allows for a more pleasing industrial design and improved ergonomics for a better user experience. The tiny, fully integrated and calibrated all-in-one biosensor comes with a complete design toolkit and doesn't require subject matter design expertise.”

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Spark Biomedical, a neurostimulation device company based in Dallas, received an SBIR grant totaling $217,690 from the National Institutes of Health HEAL initiative. Spark develop wearables to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms. The company said the money will be used to validate the use of transcutaneous auricular neurostimulation to relieve withdrawal symptoms in infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).

Read more This Wearable Detects Opioid Overdose and Automatically Calls for Help

According to the latest statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an estimated 32,000 babies were born with NAS in the United States in 2014, a more than 5-fold increase since 2004. That equates to a baby born every 15 minutes in opioid withdrawal. NAS is a condition where a fetus is exposed to opioids or other substances in the womb and experiences withdrawal symptoms hours after birth.

“These are the most innocent and often overlooked victims of the opioid epidemic, whose first days on earth include experiencing the painful process of withdrawal,” said Daniel Powell, CEO of Spark Biomedical. “The current NAS treatment is to administer either morphine or methadone every few hours to titrate these infants down over a couple of weeks, simply because there are no other options. That, to us, is just not acceptable. If our technology can reduce or prevent the pain as well as the need to use opioids on a newborn, we believe it could give these infants a significantly better start in life and set them on a better path from the beginning.”

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Spark Biomedical's battery-powered wearable device delivers mild electrical stimulation through the skin around the ear, targeting cranial nerve branches. The battery lasts the entire 10-day treatment period, said the company in a press release.

A clinical study, hosted by the Medical University of South Carolina, is set to start in November. The study will be overseen by Principal Investigator Dr. Navid Khodaparast, Spark Biomedical's Chief Science Officer.

Read more Neurometrix Unveils Its Latest Innovation Quell 2.0: A Wearable Pain Relief Technology

“The incidence of neonatal abstinence syndrome continues to reach new highs and is too debilitating for us to accept current treatment,” said Dr. Khodaparast. “We have designed a study that will test a safe, therapeutic option to restore quality of life for infants and ultimately, families. In addition to our adult clinical trial beginning in October, we look to quickly follow with this study and extend the indication into the neonatal segment.”

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Portland, OR-based performance wearables maker MIO has launched mioPOD, an advanced heart rate monitor that provides accurate heart rate tracking for performance training. mioPOD uses optical sensors by Valencell, a company that is an exhibitor of the WT | Wearable Technologies Conference Series.

Aimed at elite athletes, trainers and fitness enthusiasts, the wristband-type wearable device is meant to be worn on the upper arm or forearm. It delivers reliable heart rate monitoring, haptic alerts and glanceable color zones for real-time heart rate intensity.

Related Garmin Swim 2 GPS Smartwatch Can Track Your Heart Rate Underwater

mioPOD was designed to capture accurate heart rate during intense exercises, such as cycling, high intensity interval training, gym and personal trainer workouts, body resistance, weight training, TRX, resistance training and for any athlete serious about performance training, said the company in a press release.

Since it is worn on your arm rather than your wrist, mioPOD is more resilient to blood flow, generating a more consistent signal with less noise and allows for reliable heart rate tracking. While wrist-based devices perform well on flat roads or during even-paced exercises, they are often susceptible to inaccuracies during irregular exercises and training.

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"We set out to create a performance training tracker for those serious about personal training, delivering EKG-accurate heart rate data at performance-level speeds without the need for an uncomfortable chest strap," said MIO Vice President of Sales, Marcelo Aller. "Our mission for the last two decades has been to empower everyone to reach his or her goals using our innovative technology, to achieve personal records, better themselves, and – most importantly – to train with heart."

Related Soft Wearable Health Monitor Continuously Measures ECG, Breathing, Heart Rate

Some of the features include:

Cardio Pilot. A glanceable technology with color zones that delivers real-time heart rate intensity, helping to keep the user in their cardio zone, according to their personal training goals.

Haptic Alerts. Warns the user if the signal is on, low battery status or when they simply traversed into a new selected cardio training zone.

Recovery Time Advisor. Predicts the amount of time required to be in a ready state for the next challenging effort

Training Load. Delivers report on how hard the athlete has been working over the past week, calculating the accumulated impact of all heart rate recorded training.

Valencell Optical Sensor. mioPOD uses Valencell Optical technology, an ultra-low-power tech that provides more accurate signal process of heart beat.

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Baby boomers make up the largest portion of healthcare service consumer group. Their expectations and lifestyles are therefore making an impact on how technology companies upgrade their devices, including hearing aids.

“They are the largest consumer of healthcare services, and they are very avid consumers of healthcare information and seek out information themselves,” Daniel Shen, founder of hearing aid company Eargo, said at the Connected Health Conference last week in Boston. “They approach the healthcare providers with greater initiative than older generations. What that means is from a medical device or solution standpoint, they are a very important generation and they may be able to seek out their own sources of information and not just from their doctors.”

Read more Signia Styletto: High-tech Hearing Aids with Stylish Design

Approximately 30 million Americans are affected by hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and older people are most affected by hearing loss. But many seniors still find it difficult to get hearing aids, reports MobiHealthNews. A single hearing aid costs around $2,300. Since these devices are not covered by Medicare, many senior citizens find it very hard to buy one.

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The baby boomer population is mostly tech savvy. Around 68% of this population uses smartphone, according to the Pew Research Center. Their familiarity with technology and their particular needs is driving tech companies to develop hearing aids that fit their needs.

“Designing for the baby boomer population isn’t about designing for millennials with grey hair. There are certain things designers have to keep in mind,” Charlotte Yeh, chief medical officer at AARP, told MobiHealthNews. “First of all, the common trends of consumer electronics which use small text or unlabeled or nearly invisible buttons or unintuitive interfaces may not cut it. Designers have to keep in mind there may be limitations in terms of the hearing, vision and dexterity of this population.”

Read more Eargo Launches Eargo Neo Invisible Hearing Aids

Tech companies like Apple, Eargo and Google are getting involved in the hearing aid space. While Eargo team narrowed in on comfort, affordability, natural sound and a discrete look, Apple partnered with several hearing aid companies to stream the technology. Google teamed up with Cochlear and GN Hearing to launch a new service that uses Bluetooth Low Energy to stream content from Android devices directly to hearing aids.

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Mobile ECG maker AliveCor has raised $5.78 million in new funds, according to an SEC filing. First spotted by Exits & Outcomes’ Brian Dolan, the filing lists the company’s total offerings at $9.1 million, leaving roughly $3.4 million left on the table to be sold to potential investors. This investment grows on the Mayo Clinic and Omron Healthcare-led $30 million funding the company raised in 2017, reports MobiHealthNews. The company hasn’t yet said how it will use the new funds.

AliveCor focuses on single- and six-lead smartphone ECGs and AI-based reading interpretations. The company’s latest product, KardiaMobile 6L, delivers six times more data. KardiaMobile 6L has two electrodes on the top for your fingers, and one on the bottom to contact the skin of your left leg. KardiaMobile 6L delivers EKG leads I, II, III, aVL, aVR, and aVF. All without messy gels and wires. When the user places his or her thumb on the device’s front electrodes, a third node on the back is pressed against the user’s knee or ankle. This enables the technology to give cardiologist six perspectives on the heart’s electrical activity.

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Read more AliveCor Stops Selling KardiaBand, Its ECG Accessory for Apple Watches

KardiaMobile 6L detects AFib, Bradycardia, Tachycardia & Normal heart rhythm. It provides doctors more detailed heart information and visibility into certain arrhythmias that are leading indicators of cardiovascular disease, the company says.

The company’s KardiaAI, a dual-update to its existing KardiaMobile and KardiaStation platforms for consumer and point-of-care-use recently received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In April, Complete™, a blood pressure monitor with EKG capability, which Omron developed in collaboration with AliveCor, received FDA clearance. The device is an upper arm blood pressure monitor that allows users to simultaneously monitor EKG and blood pressure readings at home. EKG readings can be measured by touching electrodes conveniently located on the top face and both sides of the monitor for easy access and comfort.

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For a partnership between a startup and a hospital to function properly, various components must work in sync. For example, the startup must be willing to listen to the hospital’s problems and provide help that addresses the issues and for the hospital, it needs enthusiastic executive buy-in and a strong champion, according to MobiHealthNews.

In February, Ada Health formed a partnership with Sutter Health, a leading U.S.-based not-for-profit healthcare network to offer personalized, on-demand health guidance to help patients make informed decisions about next steps for care. As part of the collaboration, Ada’s AI-powered symptom assessment and care navigation platform was integrated into Sutter Health’s website and My Health Online patient portal, giving more than 3 million current Sutter patients, as well as new website visitors, a personalized care experience.

Read more How Mobile Monitoring Solutions are Improving Healthcare

While having a conversation with patients, Ada Health’s chatbot uses AI and asks them about symptoms. It then generates different questions based on their symptoms and eventually produces a list of possible causes with associated probabilities.

Working with Sutter Health, Ada built a version of its technology that users could access from Sutter’s website or patient portal that would ultimately send them to the appropriate place for care.

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“What we’ve done is we’ve mapped our triage options to Sutter Health’s healthcare options, and we then geolocate a patient, show them the closest facilities, we map it for them, and then we allow them to go into MyChart and book that appointment,” Cutler told MobiHealthNews.

Since the start of deployment five months ago, the partnership has completed 20,000 assessments, averaging 100 per day. They did two-thirds of those between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m., and half of them ended up directing users to non-emergency care.

“We want to get the roadmap right, we want to get the integration with the industry tools right, and we want to prove the ROI,” Cutler said. “So, we’re literally defining the value of moving someone from a high-priced or potentially unnecessary venue of care like an emergency room to a lower-cost more relevant service, and once we define that value we’re going to define some metrics around it and make sure we move the relationship in that direction.”

Read more Embracing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Healthcare

Ada and Sutter are planning to continue their partnership and keep making improvements. A Spanish language version of the platform and integration with telemedicine are on the cards, reports MobiHealthNews.

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Beddr, the maker of SleepTuner, an FDA-registered consumer wearable that can measure your sleep, launched a new program that provides employees with a sleep tracking device, weekly coaching and referrals to experts, reports MobiHealthNews.

“Sleep is the foundation to every employee’s mental and physical health. High-quality sleep has been shown to both reduce healthcare costs, as well as improve productivity, but most employers haven’t found a comprehensive program that addresses the primary root causes of sleep issues and that benefits their entire workforce,” Michael Kisch, CEO and cofounder of Beddr, said in a statement. “Beddr’s program helps people who have a combination of physiological, psychological, and lifestyle causes of their chronic sleep issues. By enabling people to understand the root causes of their sleep problems and providing easier access to coaching and physicians, we have seen a dramatic increase among our users relative to the overall population in their understanding of their sleep health and how their choices impact their overall sleep quality.”

Read more Sleep Health Solution Dreem 2 Smart Headband Launches in the US

Beddr’s SleepTuner is an FDA-registered sensor that the company launched late last year. The device sticks to the user’s forehead, where it measures blood oxygenation, heart rate, sleep position and stopped breathing events. These data are then transmitted to the connected mobile app for the users to view trends describing their sleep quality and potential approaches to addressing them.

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The Beddr program costs $349 per person and includes the SleepTuner, mobile app. A four-week sleep coaching is also included in the program. At the end of the four-week program, participants can choose a monthly subscription service and continue working with a coach and further enhance their sleep. While Beddr’s solution is first being offered to employers, it will be available directly to consumers in the near future.

“Beddr is making sleep health more affordable and accessible by bringing the power of a sleep lab into the comfort of your home, combining clinical data and sleep science with guided behavioral change. Whether a person has insomnia, sleep apnea or poor sleep hygiene, Beddr can help people understand, improve and achieve their true sleep,” said Kisch.

Read more WatchPAT One, a Fully Disposable Home Sleep Apnea Test Receives FDA Clearance

Beddr was founded in 2016 and is based in Mountain View, California. The company also has offices in Seattle.

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Healx, an UK-based health tech firm that specializes in treatments for rare diseases, has raised $56 million in a Series B financing round, led by one of Europe’s largest VC firms Atomico and joined by Intel Capital, Global Brain and btov Partners. All previous investors, including Balderton Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners, and Jonathan Milner also participated in the round. Healx said it will use the money to develop the company’s therapeutic pipeline and to launch its global Rare Treatment Accelerator program.

Read more Top 5 Health Tech Companies That Are Developing Wearable Medical Devices

“The size of this Series B financing, especially this quickly after our Series A round last year, is an endorsement of the value of our platform and the pace at which we have developed. It allows us to scale our impact with the launch of our Rare Treatment Accelerator program and to progress into clinical trials,” said Healx Co-Founder and CEO, Dr Tim Guilliams.

“The trials for our fragile X treatments are just the start of the impact we believe our technology is capable of having on drug discovery. Rare diseases affect over 400 million patients world-wide. Of the 7,000 rare diseases known today, 95% are still without an approved treatment.”

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Traditional method of drug discovery and clinical development of new medicines is very expensive in terms of costs, timelines and efficacy. “To bring a new drug to market typically costs $2-3 billion, takes 12-14 years to develop and has a 95% failure rate,” Guilliams told TechCrunch.

Healx’s AI-driven approach makes the process faster, more efficient and more cost-effective, the company said. With the launch of the Rare Treatment Accelerator, Healx and partnering patient groups will be able to scale the impact of this approach by leveraging the power of AI and combining their knowledge, information and expertise so that, together, they can discover new treatments and move them towards the clinic within 24 months.

Read more Tiny Bluetooth-Driven Implant Deliver Drugs for Chronic Disease Management

The company said its mission is to advance 100 rare disease treatments towards the clinic by 2025. Healnet, Healx’s AI platform, delivers data-driven treatment predictions, which shortens the discovery-to-clinic timeline to as little as 24 months. It is the world’s leading AI platform on rare diseases and integrates scientific literature, clinical trial results and proprietary data in the form of a biomedical knowledge graph, pinpointing the potential therapeutic relationships between drugs and diseases.

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Garmin announced its latest swimming smartwatch, the Garmin Swim 2, promising hardened swimmers a new way to monitor their fitness, progress and health. The watch can be used in the pool or in open water to monitor heart rate at the wrist while also tracking distance, pace, SWOLF score, stroke count and distance per stroke. It can also track rests, timed sets, and log drills. If you like to exercise out of the pool, you can also log running and cycling.

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“No matter where you decide to swim, the new Garmin Swim 2 will track your workout,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales. “Designed for all types of swimming enthusiasts, from frequent fitness swimmers to competitive, Masters or open water swimmers, this GPS smartwatch will not only help you train better in the water, but also monitor other key health metrics throughout the day.”

The open-water swim mode uses built-in GPS for swims in lakes, oceans or rivers while additionally recording stroke distance, reports Business Wire.

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Garmin Swim 2 is designed to be worn all day. It can also track steps, monitor sleep quality and more. With an array of connected features, the Garmin Swim 2 lets users stay in touch with the rest of the world, even while on the move. When paired with a compatible smartphone, it automatically uploads to Garmin Connect™, an online fitness community where users can analyze their activity, track their progress and create custom workouts. Directly from the wrist, users will be able to receive text messages and view social media updates, emails and more.

Related Form Introduces Augmented Reality Swim Goggles that You Can Wear Underwater

The Garmin Swim 2 features up to 7 days of battery life in smartwatch mode, up to 13 hours in GPS and optical heart rate (OHR) mode and up to 72 hours in pool and OHR mode. It is available now for sale via Garmin’s website and Amazon. The watch comes in 2 colors: Slate and Whitestone. The suggested retail price is $249.99.

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Tech giant Apple has won a patent for a smart ring that could let you control your other devices without touching them.

Based on the patent application filed by Apple, the electronic ring computing device will feature a touchscreen, wireless transceiver, processor, sensors, and a rechargeable power source.

Read more Apple’s Patent Suggests Health Tracking via Smart Clothes

The patent was originally filed in 2015 and it is unclear if this will become a commercial Apple product.

In the patent Apple explains that touchscreen devices can be seen as "cumbersome, inconvenient, or inefficient for certain tasks and applications,” reports The Sun. The company says the Apple Ring could be a more efficient way to control iPhone or iPad from a distance because holding these devices for too long could fatigue some users.

Apple also underlines the potential safety features of the ring. It says that the light emitted from some touchscreen devices such as a smartphone, could be “inappropriate in certain social environments or even dangerous if it gives away the position of a threatened user.” Therefore, the company says that in a dangerous situation the smart ring could be a safer and more discreet way for people to get help.

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Apple also suggests that the ring might contain a telephone module for making phone calls and that the touch surface could be either a pad or a small screen.

The Apple ring can communicate to the device it’s paired with in various ways, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, and NFC. The patent draws a scenario where the user is able to transfer money to someone else with a handshake, and authorize the transaction with a voice command. This could also be used to transfer messages or share files with another ring user. The ring also has biometric sensors and can monitor the wearer’s heart rate.

Read more Oura Ring’s New Feature ‘Moment’ Tracks Your Meditation

According to The Sun report, if this smart ring is meant to be a supplementary device for other wearables like the rumored Apple Glasses then the Apple ring could be launching around 2020.

Back in the day a visit to the doctor’s office was a more fulfilling experience for the patient. The doctor would ask them questions about their health condition and their medications. The entire time the doctor’s focus would be on the patient and not on a computer screen and the doctor wouldn’t be pecking on the keyboard or search for the patient’s medical record on the computer. However, this scenario is far from the norm today.

Read more Fitbits could help save the lives of chemo patients by helping doctors predict patient reaction

But all these might change because of artificial intelligence (AI). According to experts, in an exam room of the future, the doctor would be able to call up a lab result or prescribe a new medicine with a simple voice command. The doctor wouldn’t be distracted by entering symptoms into your electronic health record (EHR).

Now, software provider Nuance Communications and Microsoft have partnered to transform the clinical experience for doctors and patients. The companies said their partnership will accelerate the delivery of ambient clinical intelligence (ACI) technologies that will power the exam room of the future where clinical documentation writes itself, reports Microsoft.

The Nuance-Microsoft partnership will bring together leading technologies from both companies:

• Nuance’s healthcare-optimized speech recognition and processing solutions such as its Dragon Medical platform already used by more than 500,000 physicians worldwide; advanced conversational AI for ambient clinical documentation and decision support; voice biometrics; and specialized ambient sensing hardware
• Microsoft Azure, Azure AI and Project EmpowerMD Intelligent Scribe Service backed with advanced conversational AI and natural language understanding

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“The Microsoft partnership will accelerate our ability to solve for healthcare’s most pressing challenges — together,” said Mark Benjamin, Nuance CEO. “The ambient technologies we will jointly deliver can improve productivity and professional satisfaction, while empowering doctors to focus on what they do best: take care of patients.”

Physician burnout is at epidemic levels. A recent study shows that primary care doctors now spend two hours on administrative tasks for every hour they’re involved in direct patient care. Physicians reported one to two hours of after-hours work each night, mostly related to administrative tasks.

Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, said, “We have an incredible opportunity to use advances in cloud and AI technology to transform healthcare delivery. Together with Nuance, we will apply the power of Azure and Azure AI to this challenge, with the aim of improving the day-to-day life of firstline healthcare workers everywhere — so they can provide better care.”

Read more Microsoft Patents Multidimensional Heart Rate Sensor that Delivers Accurate Data on Wearables

The companies will expand upon Nuance’s early success with ACI and expect to introduce the technology to an initial set of physician specialties in early 2020. Built on Microsoft Azure, this new technology will marry the two companies’ strengths in developing ambient sensing and conversational AI solutions, including ambient listening, wake-up word, voice biometrics, signal enhancement, document summarization, natural language understanding, clinical intelligence and text-to-speech.

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