3. Company details
• Care2Wear A/S is providing mobile communication
services as a virtual operator
• The overall vision for Care2Wear A/S is to provide
communication services and technology enabling
continuous remote monitoring of care data
• Care2Wear A/S was founded in 2004
• Physical Facilities in Roskilde-DK
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4. Background
• Hospitalized cardiac patients are
frequently monitored (24x7)
– Stationary – bedside monitoring
– Telemetry – restricted mobility
– Scandinavia is leading in use of
telemetry
• Techologies exist
– Portable devices
– Wireless data transport
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5. Drivers for remote monitoring
• Patient mobility – send the
patients home
– Comfort – avoid or reduce
hospitalization
– Diagnostic context – monitor in 'real
life' – quick feedback
– Reduced risk of infections
• Multi-diagnosis patients
– Orthopedic
– Surgical
– Psychiatric
• 'Expert backup'
– Telemedicine
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6. World’s first commercial online continuous 24x7 realtime remote heart monitoring service, ECGLink
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7. The components…
Patient’s Suitcase
• ECGLink
– Small, battery-driven, portable
ECG device
– Mobile gateway (phone)
– Server (transformation, logging,
link supervision)
– Interfacing to hospital backend
– 24x7 operation
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8. Financial drivers
• Cardiac-ward bed
– 2500-7500 DKK/day
• ECGLink
– Typical 500 DKK/day
• Depends on license agreement
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9. Status
• Stable technology
– Matured for several years
• Commercially available
– Since mid-2006
• In daily use at 6 danish
hospitals
– Moving approx. 30MB / patient
• Even the media found out...
–
http://www.berlingske.dk/article/20080313/danmark/703130052/
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10. Limitations
• Patient selection is important
– Non-risk patients only
– Response time
• GPRS/3G/4G/WiFi coverage
– DK not a problem
• Cost
– Roaming
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11. Lessons learned
• Focus on usability is required
–
–
–
–
–
Battery change
Charging
Power-on
Indicators
Checklists and guidelines
• Training is vital
– and so is follow-up
• Users like it
– Patients, nurses & doctors
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12. - more lessons
• Patient contact
– Simple solutions work well
– VideoCall tried
• BT effective range is sensitive
– Varies from 6m to 100m
– Device location is important
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13. Challenges
• Market inertia
– Budget owners <> decision makers
<> users
• Roaming cost
– International
• Internet access from hospitals
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14. Online Remote Monitoring of Cardiac Patients conclusions
•
•
•
•
Commercially available
Happy users
Works well
Market inertia
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15. Thank you for your attention!
Birgitte Lønvig
bl@care2wear.com
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