Have a Seat, Save a Life

It’s the ultimate paradox.

For the last several decades, healthcare professionals have touted the benefits of regular exercise: Physical activity, they preach, can help control weight, combat heart disease and high blood pressure, boost energy, lift spirits and improve sleeping patterns. Doctors have long delivered sermons about the clinical dangers of inactivity (longer recovery times, they’ve shouted from their pulpits), and some studies have suggested that sedentary individuals are prone to developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in particular.

Various organizations recently have informally adopted a “Get Up and Get Moving” motto to inspire regular exercise among diabetics (as well as those at risk of the disease), and, for the last few years, CNN has sponsored a “Fit Nation Triathlon Challenge.”

With such a cacophony of mixed-media messages about the benefits of exercise, it seems more than a bit odd that Waltham, Mass.-based EarlySense would debut a product designed to save lives through sitting.

But during Medica 2012 World Forum for Medicine in Düsseldorf, Germany, the firm launched a new-generation, patient-monitoring device that continuously records and documents patients’ cardiac, respiratory and motion parameters using a contact-free sensor placed under a chair cushion. The sensor (which lasts about 12 months) never touches the patient but nonetheless can detect significant changes in heart rate, respiration or body motion.

EarlySense’s sensor technology—which debuted at last year’s installment of Medica—is designed to monitor non-ICU “lower-risk” patients on medical surgical floors who typically are checked by on-duty nurses once every four to five hours. All patient information is exhibited on a bedside monitor, at the nurse’s station and on large-screen displays in various hospital departments. Nurses also receive alerts on their handheld devices to ensure timely care.

“There is a consensus among clinicians today that getting patients out of bed and into a chair is an important step in accelerating recuperation and reducing risks,” EarlySense CEO Avner Halperin said in a news release announcing the “chair sensor” (which is similar to the EverOn hospital bed sensor system the firm launched last year). EarlySense…provides clinicians with a way to continuously monitor patients in a contact-free way on chairs as well as in bed. This minimizes the hassle of connecting patients to wired monitors. It also empowers clinicians to provide maximal patient safety and proactive care.”

Besides the contact-free “chair sensor,” EarlySense also added an SpO2 pulse oximetry data feature to its monitoring system. The company received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for its bedside system and central display system with oximetry integration earlier this fall.

“EarlySense is constantly seeking and driving meaningful expansion of its patient monitoring offering,” continued. “One such enhancement the company has prepared in response to the Joint Commission’s August 2012 Sentinel Event Alert is the integration of SpO2 monitoring into the system. The SpO2 connects to the EarlySense bedside monitor and helps streamline patient care and assist clinicians in identifying the early warning signs of respiratory distress. Of significance, EarlySense’s is the first system to integrate SpO2 monitoring and contact-free respiratory monitoring into a unified solution.”

EarlySense’s contact free monitoring system is on display at Medica through Nov. 17 in Hall 16, Stand G40.