Research begins on a wristwatch that can help detect Covid
Researchers in the US are working to determine whether a digital wristwatch can be used to alert wearers that may have become infected with Covid
The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researchers are recruiting around 70 healthcare workers (who have not had Covid-19 and have not received the vaccine) for the task, which will study the device known as Empatica E4 – to see whether it can capture and detect early signs for respiratory infection in these healthcare workers.
“The idea is to be able to pull biometric data such as temperature and heart rate together to see if there is a way to accurately predict seroconversion to Covid-19 prior to the development of clinical symptoms that otherwise might not be detected,” said Dr Frank J. Penedo, Ph.D., Associate Director for Cancer Survivorship and Translational Behavioral Sciences at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Professor of Psychology and Medicine at the Miller School of Medicine.
The early warning system could alert wearers to get a Covid test and quarantine –reducing the likelihood of spreading the virus among healthcare workers, patients, and the local community.
In our feature, ‘The benefits of remote patient monitoring technologies’ (RPM), Hospitals & Healthcare looked at how RPM, like the new Covid-detecting wristwatch are influencing the development of healthcare so that it is increasingly centred around the user experience, and how payers and providers can benefit from this.