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Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

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Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#61
post #37
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you be specific about what you're trying to get at here? I don't understand why you think there is a difference between taking a health reading at your doctors office and having it included in your patient chart, or taking a reading at your house and having that included in your patient chart. I'm wondering if I'm missing something that is just being unsaid.

I think they are just saying the data is more likely to be secure if it is recorded at your doctor's office, which seems reasonable to me. Let's say it is a blood pressure reading taken by your Fitbit and uploaded to Google's servers. That data is not subject to HIPAA regulations. When your doctor takes your blood pressure and records it in your chart, it is subject to those regulations (as you say, it would be wildl…

"Separately, even if the two scenarios were subject to the same regulations, I would still expect the doctor's office scenario to be more secure. I think that any given patient's home network/device/security practices are more lax than those of most healthcare organizations."

For the most part security for healthcare systems is like security for government systems. A lot of checkbox marking and little real security. Just look at the large number of successful ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations. Having at one time worked in health informatics and from observing the practices at my healthcare providers I am not confident my data is anymore protected at a doctor's office.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#63
post #8

There is a conference in Germany every year called medica. If you are interested in medical devices, I highly recommend going there and checking it out. It's an absolutely MASSIVE grounds with THOUSANDS of vendors showing everything from MRI machines to boroscopes, ambulance equipment...anything related to the medical field. Something which absolutely surprised me when I was there a few years ago was the amount of Io…

> It was actually a bit depressing to see how much stuff is available, just not available in the US

One reason for this is strict regulations. U.S. FDA Title 21 CFR Part 11 is very strict as to what a medical device company needs to do, and it's not easy to meet those requirements. Most people do not realize that even in the early startup stage, if you build something that is a medical device, there are rules to follow (mostly about traceability: you have to know what you've built, using what parts, and where those came from).

Shameless plug: I am the solo founder of PartsBox (https://partsbox.com/), which helps a lot with managing traceability when building electronics.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#64
post #63
post #8

There is a conference in Germany every year called medica. If you are interested in medical devices, I highly recommend going there and checking it out. It's an absolutely MASSIVE grounds with THOUSANDS of vendors showing everything from MRI machines to boroscopes, ambulance equipment...anything related to the medical field. Something which absolutely surprised me when I was there a few years ago was the amount of Io…

> It was actually a bit depressing to see how much stuff is available, just not available in the US One reason for this is strict regulations. U.S. FDA Title 21 CFR Part 11 is very strict as to what a medical device company needs to do, and it's not easy to meet those requirements. Most people do not realize that even in the early startup stage, if you build something that is a medical device, there are rules to foll…

I would be interested in knowing more about the tradeoffs between their system and ours, if you could expand a bit?

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#65
post #27
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In real time and willing and able to sell it to whomever bids more?

Well yes in some cases it is in "real time", but do you know of doctors offices caught selling health data? That seems wildly unethical, and also very illegal. I'd imagine anybody caught doing that would be in jail.

Many health systems sell “anonymized” health data that fits the HIPAA description and is completely legal.

So if your doctor is part of a larger health system or uses an EMR system odds are that all your data is bundled up and sold. It’s not identifiable easily, but is still sold and used.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#66
post #8

There is a conference in Germany every year called medica. If you are interested in medical devices, I highly recommend going there and checking it out. It's an absolutely MASSIVE grounds with THOUSANDS of vendors showing everything from MRI machines to boroscopes, ambulance equipment...anything related to the medical field. Something which absolutely surprised me when I was there a few years ago was the amount of Io…

It's just like the condition monitoring and predictive maintenance market, but for humans.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#68
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and TONS of platforms wanted to warehouse this data. My coworker and I were there looking for exactly those sorts of things, and it was great to see so much. As I read your comment, I had a growing expectation that you were about to express horror at the mass gathering and warehousing of individuals' health data. I was very surprised when you expressed such excitement at the prospect.

If you acknowledge the threats, you should acknowledge the opportunities as well. Expressing "horror" every time data is mentioned in connection with health data is a very one-sided reflex. Surely, there are challenges, but why not solve them?

> Expressing "horror" every time data is mentioned in connection with health data is a very one-sided reflex.

Good call. It was a mistake for me to post such a once-sided comment.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#69

This device monitors pressure needed to cause transient digital arteriolar occlusion using MEMs sensors. It then uses an algorithm that uses this data along with pulse oximetry data to estimate the brachial arterial blood pressure. In situations where it actually matters ( patients with abnormally low or high BP, patients with low peripheral perfusion, patients with peripheral vasoconstriction, critically ill patient…

Oh! Skepticism is good. And this type of tech is very good for goal-directed management of fluid resuscitation! Severe peripheral vasoconstriction, not so much, as you mentioned. Really, in my first-hand experience most clinicians use the tech to follow trends in the ICU or surgery.

I wouldn't call the claims Theranos-level, but at the same time I don't see how this is any more useful for the general population than the standard automated blood pressure cuffs. Maybe that will change as things evolve!

This article has a nice review of the history-- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4312947/.

Re: Cuffless device delivers clinically accurate blood pressure measurements

#70
post #63
post #8

There is a conference in Germany every year called medica. If you are interested in medical devices, I highly recommend going there and checking it out. It's an absolutely MASSIVE grounds with THOUSANDS of vendors showing everything from MRI machines to boroscopes, ambulance equipment...anything related to the medical field. Something which absolutely surprised me when I was there a few years ago was the amount of Io…

> It was actually a bit depressing to see how much stuff is available, just not available in the US One reason for this is strict regulations. U.S. FDA Title 21 CFR Part 11 is very strict as to what a medical device company needs to do, and it's not easy to meet those requirements. Most people do not realize that even in the early startup stage, if you build something that is a medical device, there are rules to foll…

Yep. This was my major takeaway. There is so much incredible opportunity there, but the regulators are in the way.
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