Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester Medical Center, and Casana Partner for Inconspicuous Daily Monitoring Study

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Casana have partnered to conduct a research study titled, “Inconspicuous Daily Monitoring to Reduce Heart Failure Hospitalizations”.

In-home monitoring technologies have the potential to transform the healthcare system by enabling the transition from reactive care to proactive and preventive care. This study will leverage a highly innovative technology for cardiovascular in-home daily monitoring; The Heart Seat™.

The central hypothesis of this research is that hospitalization rates and duration of stay for heart failure patients can be significantly reduced through inconspicuous in-home monitoring and early intervention. Classical approaches to in-home monitoring, such as blood pressure and weight monitoring have had limited success, with patient adherence cited as a major barrier to reducing hospitalizations. The outpatient management plan is novel as it combines daily measurement of cardiac symptoms and inconspicuous measurement of cardiac function with smart computerized analysis to alert HF-trained advanced practice providers (APP) to initiate a same-day clinical assessment and treatment plan. The success of this system will be evaluated through an in-home clinical trial of heart failure patients.

This study has three distinct aims:

• To create a learning dataset and data visualization architecture from HF patient in-home physiologic data, perceived wellness, and adverse events.
• Create an automated prediction model for early alert of hospitalizations.
• Reduce hospitalizations through inconspicuous in-home monitoring and early intervention.

These systems will be used in a rolling, ninety-day, in-home deployment of The Heart Seat™ to two hundred HF subjects to create a learning dataset consisting of in-home physiologic data, patient-perceived wellness and activity, and adverse events. This data will be used to design and validate an alert-based system that tracks the progression of patient-specific physiology and determines an estimated time until an adverse event. Finally, the ability of the alert-based system to reduce hospitalizations through early intervention will be validated through a second in-home study of another two hundred HF patients.

The study will be conducted at Strong Memorial Hospital and Highland Hospital, in Rochester New York and will be led by Linwei Wang, Ph.D. and Wojciech Zareba, M.D., Ph.D., in conjunction with Karl Q Schwarz, M.D., Leway Chen, M.D., Robert Strawderman, Ph.D., Hye-Jin Nae, MFA., and Adam Smith, MFA.

About Rochester Institute of Technology:
Rochester Institute of Technology, shapes the future and improves the world through creativity and innovation. As an engaged, intellectually curious, and socially conscious community, RIT leverages the power of technology, the arts, and design for the greater good as one of the top universities in the nation working at the intersection of technology, the arts, and design with close ties to industry and alumni.

About University of Rochester Medical Center:
The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) is one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers. It forms the centerpiece of the University of Rochester’s health research, teaching and patient care missions as a private, coeducational, nonsectarian, and nonprofit research university.

The medical center includes Strong Memorial Hospital, the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, with its faculty practice (University of Rochester Medical Faculty Group), and the University of Rochester School of Nursing.

About Casana:
Casana’s vision is to create an effortless, home monitoring device available to consumers in order to support proactive health. The Heart Seat™ is our first solution. By capturing long-term vital trends from sensors such as ECG, BCG, and PPG through daily monitoring, care providers can receive a holistic picture of their patients or loved ones’ health without worrying what might be missing due to compliance barriers.