About our project
The Problem We Solve
10 billion dollars and 1 million hospital readmissions each year, for 6 million Americans living with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) are three numbers that are far too high and much of them are preventable. Our innovation addresses this currently high rate of preventable hospital admissions and readmissions. In most instances, CHF patients are advised to take a daily diuretic to manage fluid volume overloading, and measure its effectiveness by using a bathroom scale. If there is an increase of approximately 3 pounds in one day, the patient is advised to go to the hospital.
This method is overly crude, and neglects to monitor the other informative metrics in CHF patients. This causes patients to not only be hospitalized when their conditions do not demand it, but it also fails to detect cases of reversibly insufficient therapy. By monitoring a significantly more extensive set of metrics for CHF we can detect small changes and reverse them before they become deteriorations that require hospitalization.
How We Solve It
What exactly is CHF? When the heart fails to effectively function like a pump, fluids get backed up throughout its circuit (the blood vessels), and the transportation of blood becomes inefficient and even insufficient.
We use a wearable garment with biosensors to measure all the metrics that best indicate progression of CHF – those metrics are in the heart, lungs, blood, and other parts of the body – and the efficacy of its treatment, so that we may make adjustments in therapy BEFORE the patient needs to be admitted to the hospital or go to the emergency department.
How it Works
VoluMonitor works by monitoring the metrics of the heart that indicate the health-state of the patient with CHF. Biosensors are embedded in a vest that the patient wears each day, and that data is sent for analysis to the patient’s doctor, who can determine if the patient is healthy, or needs his or her therapy to be adjusted.
Clinical Proof to Date
We’ve tested our prototypes on healthy test subjects under the conditions of an IRB.
FDA Status
We will be submitting a 510(k) for class 2 device clearance. This means that we will set out to prove to the FDA that our device is, essentially, at least as effective as the current state of the technology used.
How your project will help reduce cardiovascular disease and stroke by 20% by 2020
By closely monitoring the biometrics associated with CHF, we will be able to tailor therapies to match precisely what (and when) patients need. In doing so, we will prevent progression of CHF in diagnosed patients, reduce hospital admissions, maintain a healthy state to prevent catastrophic events (e.g. maintain a normal BP in CHF patients to prevent stroke), and increase patient quality of life.
How We Help Patients
We empower patients to take control of their CHF. Currently, the most a patient can do, usually, is measure his or herself each morning, and determine if the CHF drugs are working. By making a system that both collects all relevant biometrics, and also is extremely comfortable and simple to use, we offer patients a system with high compliance potential, that can better guide them and their doctors in managing their CHF.
How We Help Doctors
Our solution can prevent a significant majority of costly (and penalized under the Affordable Healthcare Act) hospital readmissions for your patients. Our device is relatively low cost, with a monthly service fee, so if you don’t like it, you need not have your patients use it.
How We Help Hospitals, Institutions, and/ or Medical Facilities
By preventing deterioration of CHF patients with monitoring in their own homes, we can prevent most CHF readmissions, keep limited beds open, and prevent heavy penalties to hospitals that have been instated with the Affordable Care Act that penalize for readmissions.
How We Help Our Partners
By preventing deterioration of CHF, we can prevent hospital readmissions. Each hospital readmission costs at least $10,000. We can prevent catastrophic events like stroke, which are most burdensome to insurers. Let’s work together to keep patients healthier and out of the hospital!
How We Will Spend Your Contributions
Perfecting our prototypes for both the patient and the doctor: to maximize comfort and usability for the patient (to optimize patient compliance), and to optimize the management and presentation of the data to the doctor.
Who We Are
We are a young team of engineering, medical, and clnical experts looking to innovate in ways that can improve health and quality of life for cardiac patients.
Founders: Vigi Katlowitz, Eric Forkosh, Larry Baruch, Benji Strauss
Chief Medical Officer: Larry Baruch, MD
Attending cardiogist at New York hospitals. Clinical guru.
CTO / Engineering Lead: Eric Forkosh
Hardware whiz and microprocessor designer. Youngest adjunct prof.
Chief Science Officer: Vigi Katlowitz
Machine learning guru. Cooper Union engineer. Neuro-enthusiast.
Chief Executive Officer: Benji Strauss
Inspired. Cooper Union biomedical engineer. EMT. Inventor. Humbled.
How to Find Us
Twitter
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Have a question?
If the info above does not help, you can ask the project creator directly.
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