Innovative health tech has experienced robust growth since 2020, fueled primarily by COVID-19 tailwinds and the need for greater enterprise efficiency.
By FY2023, it accounted for close to one-fourth of the healthcare innovation market. In absolute value, the market more than doubled, growing from about US$3 billion in 2020 to US$7 billion in FY 2023.
Health tech has already spread its wings to various consumer scenarios, including telemedicine, e-pharmacy, e-diagnostics, and wellness. On the enterprise side, Healthtech innovations have streamlined areas like SaaS-based hospital clinics and pharmacy management solutions.
Health tech has grown so rapidly because of the efficiency of its innovations, which have made health and well-being solutions more convenient and accessible.
In the coming segments, we will look into an innovation that has a high potential for large-scale adoption.
Smart Mask: Monitoring Breath to Understand Health
A team of Caltech researchers, including Wei Gao, the professor of medical engineering, and his colleagues, have come up with a smart face mask integrated with a self-cooling strategy, automated microfluidics, and biosensors for wearable exhaled breath condensate sampling and analysis of metabolites.
Source: Caltech
The solution is usable in different end-use cases where the goal is to monitor various medical conditions, including respiratory ailments such as asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and post-COVID-19 infections. While some masks monitor physical changes like temperature, humidity, or breathing rate, this one—known as EBCare—can analyze breath chemicals in real-time.
EBC stands for exhaled breath condensate. The chemicals it detects provide necessary information for various health parameters related to specific diseases. For instance, monitoring nitrite levels helps assess an asthma patient’s airway inflammation.
One of the solution’s primary benefits is that it eliminates the waiting period for lab results. It offers insights in real-time from the comfort and convenience of our home or office.
While elaborating on EBCare’s advantages, Wei Gao said:
“Since COVID-19, people are wearing masks more. We can leverage this increased mask use for remote personalized monitoring to get real-time feedback about our health in our home or office. For instance, we could use this information to assess how well a medical treatment may be working.”
How EBCare Works
It all starts with the cooling of breath. EBCare follows a passive cooling system that integrates hydrogel evaporative cooling with radiative cooling to effectively chill the breath on face masks.
The cooling converts the breath into liquid, which is then transported to sensors for analysis through a series of capillaries. This is part of a class of devices known as bioinspired microfluidics. The liquid transportation mechanism mirrors how plants draw and transport water upward from the ground.
Once the analysis is done, the results are electronically transmitted to a personal phone, tablet, or computer. In addition to being seamless and convenient, the smart masks are low-cost, with materials costing only $1.
Testing the Mask on Real-Life Scenarios
One of the masks’ tests involved patients suffering from asthma or COPD. The monitored parameter was nitrite, a biomarker that indicates the levels of airway inflammation.
The mask also proved effective in detecting blood alcohol levels in human subjects, making it fit for on-site drinking-and-driving checks and other forms of alcohol-consumption monitoring.
In another scenario, the researchers looked into the possibility of assessing blood urea levels in diseases related to Kidney. A deteriorating kidney often leads to increased urea in saliva, which breaks down into ammonia gas, resulting in higher ammonium levels in the breath condensate. The mask can detect this change.
While outlining the mask’s prospects, Gao said:
“We want to expand this technology to incorporate different markers related to various health conditions. This is a foundation for creating a mask that functions as a versatile general health monitoring platform.”
Like EBCare, many solutions have emerged recently. These solutions make healthcare more convenient, inclusive, and accessible.
In May 2022, a group of researchers envisioned a smart mask as a wearable IoT solution for improved protection and personal health. In explaining their purpose and objective, the researchers said:
“The integration of sensing, materials, AI, wireless, IoT, and software will help the gathering of health data and health-related event detection in real-time from the user as well as from their environment.”
While pointing out the solution’s potential benefits, the proponents outlined how the combination of technology and healthcare can yield results. For instance, in this case, AI-based analysis of health data can predict and decrease medical costs with accurate diagnoses and treatment plans.
While the smart mask stands out, there are many more examples of companies that have managed to offer exceptionally innovative propositions in health tech. In the following segments, we look at a couple of such companies.
#1. MedTronic
MedTronic has a device called BioButton, which is a multi-parameter wearable. It is a medical-grade wearable device that can continuously monitor vital signs of our body, including skin temperature, respiratory rate at rest, and heart rate at rest. The solution comes as part of Medtronic’s Healthcast™ intelligent patient manager, a portfolio of remote monitoring and connectivity solutions.
BioButton is a small, discreet, and simple-to-apply self-adhesive device. It is non-invasive, and patients can wear it on their upper left chest. With a continuous battery life of up to 16 days at a stretch, the BioButton can track and capture 1,440 vital sign measurements per day, including clinically relevant parameters of skin temperature, respiratory rate at rest, and heart rate at rest.
The device is packed with personalized baseline alerts – more accurate and efficient than clinical alarms. It has configurable acute and post-acute modes and is compatible with integration with existing EMR systems in hospitals.
Medtronic’s BioButton enables continuous remote patient monitoring, which has a host of advantages. It reduces burnout, empowers clinicians, improves patient satisfaction, and improves outcomes at hospitals and homes.
The device minimizes the time for manual vital sign collection and documentation. Patients feel more comfortable as they undergo fewer nighttime spot checks. Healthcare facilities, on the other hand, can operate at more optimized efficiency as hospital stays become shorter, the number of unplanned ICU admissions decreases, complication rates decrease, and the frequency of rapid response team activations decreases.
The solution is especially useful for patients suffering from chronic illnesses like COPD or CHF. Altogether, it brings down the mortality rate.
In May 2024, Medtronic announced financial results for its fourth quarter (Q4) and fiscal year 2024 (FY24), which ended on April 26, 2024. The revenue for the quarter stood at US$8.6 billion, which increased 0.5% as reported and 5.4% organic. The revenue for FY24 was US$32.4 billion, which increased by 3.6% as reported and 5.2% organic.
During this tenure, Medtronic received US FDA approval for many of its solutions, including Evolut™ FX+ TAVR system and Inceptiv™ closed-loop spinal cord stimulator. It received China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) approval for the Symplicity Spyral™ renal denervation system. It also submitted the Affera Sphere-9™ ablation catheter and Simplera Sync™ CGM to the US FDA, seeking approval during this time.
#2. Philips
Philips’ IntelliVue MX40 is an intelligently designed patient wearable monitor with innovative features for ambulatory patients to wear comfortably and conveniently. While patients move around the care unit, the device wirelessly monitors them at the IntelliVue Information Center iX.
Moreover, the device has a unique cable connector that – by design – reduces the collection of soil and liquids and withstands high-level disinfectants, including periodic sterilization. It has similar levels of customized alarm systems to those we saw for the previous solution.
When in the patient’s vicinity or while ambulating a patient, the device shows alarms only at the Information Center. The device can be configured to display and sound alarms based on the patient’s clinical needs.
The device, which is simple in its energy requirement, works both with disposable AA batteries and a single Philips rechargeable battery and comes with a wireless short-range connection to IntelliVue monitors to capture vital signs or for more comprehensive viewing.
If we delve into its medical specifics further, the device can obtain derived 12-lead ECG information while continuously monitoring ST and QT, FAST SpO2, and impedance respiration. It supports up to 5-screen formats, with all the required information being there – readily available – with a single touch.
In the Financial Year 2023, Philips registered 18.2 billion Euros in sales with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.6%.
While large medtech and universal tech companies like Medtronic and Phillips are riding the waves of innovative health tech with much gusto, the researchers also remain undaunted in their search for more convenient, useful, and cost-efficient solutions in health tech. We will conclude today’s article with details on some such research, which is indicative of what the future of health tech would look like.
The Future of Innovative HealthTech
In recognition of the potential innovative health tech has in shaping our world, the World Health Organization (WHO) has created a Public Digital Health Technology team known as PDH. Its stated mission is to engage with a variety of stakeholders in digital health to achieve three strategic objectives: normative support, market shaping, and operational support.
The key initiatives taken by the PDH team include ensuring SMART guidelines. The team also aims to contribute towards coordinated assessments of digital health needs while providing support to countries to adopt and scale quality digital health technologies that meet local needs and contribute to resilient and sustainable health systems.
Apart from devices, there are well-known companies like EY that go beyond hardware and offer software and data support. The EY Smart Health Analytics, for instance, is a platform that helps curate controllable live data sets, analyze data in ways that matter to the user, and drive action that makes a difference on the ground.
EY has a full-fledged Healthcare Transformation team to support healthcare providers and payers in their journey. This team leverages all cutting-edge tech paradigms, including the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), and remote monitoring, to bring agility into the system and help deal with volume without losing out on value.
And when it comes to large companies directly getting involved in innovative health tech, there is no dearth of resourceful candidates.
While we have already discussed companies like Medtronic and Philips, there are more companies on the scene. For instance, Abbott (NYSE: ABT) recently obtained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for two new over-the-counter continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems – Lingo™ and Libre Rio™.
The Lingo system, which deserves a special mention here, combines a biosensor that is worn on the upper arm for 14 days and continuously streams glucose data to a coaching application on a smartphone. In other words, it helps translate the body’s language and gives insights into the person’s reaction to food, exercise, and life’s daily stressors.
Libre Rio – on the other hand – is an over-the-counter integrated continuous glucose monitoring (iCGM) device indicated for non-insulin-using persons ages 18 and older.
Philips, apart from the solution we have already discussed, has also come up with an ePatch and extended holter. The patch offers 3-14 days of extended Holter monitoring that is simple, actionable, and efficient. In technological terms, the solution is cutting-edge, to say the least. It leverages medical-grade AI and flexible wear options to deliver comprehensive, actionable reports quickly based on the wearer’s prescribed study length. It comes with reports that are easy to read and comprehend and have infographics attached to them.
Concluding Thoughts
Worldwide population growth requires the world’s healthcare systems to match up with its pace. Physical inaccessibility of diagnostic and treatment facilities remains a challenge worldwide.
In developing economies, access to healthcare facilities remains a roadblock to improving mortality. Wearable or non-invasive health tech can fill this gap.
The use of AI, high-speed internet and transmission technology, blockchain, and other sophisticated tech paradigms makes it possible for users to access low-cost and easy-to-access diagnostic and monitoring services.
Going ahead, companies, especially the big tech ones, will have to invest more resources to gear up the production of such devices. Scaling up would help reach the correct pricing economy, and – eventually – all sorts of users will benefit from the rising tide of innovative health tech.
Click here for a list of top wearable health-tracking companies to invest in.