Rhythmlink Announces Patent License Agreement With Dignity Health

Rhythmlink International LLC announced a new patent licensing agreement with Dignity Health that includes broad coverage for improving and expanding brain health monitoring options for caregivers and patients. Dignity Health’s U.S. Patent Number 9,345,418 was protected and commercialized by the Dignity Health Intellectual Property Office and covers an EEG Net with Transmission Capabilities. This proprietary technology allows quick and easy collection of EEG data and distribution to medical equipment and health care personnel for analysis and intervention. This device is easy to use allowing staff the ability to monitor the brain anywhere anytime maximizing workflow efficiencies and freeing up existing EEG Neurodiagnostic staff, or other cross trained professionals, to be more productive in the patient care setting.
 
This technology expands the ability of both large and small hospitals to perform brain health monitoring to identify dangerous patient conditions including subclinical seizure and stroke. It even extends the ability to perform brain health monitoring outside of the hospital to ambulances, urgent care clinics and the home.
 
“Rhythmlink invests heavily annually in research and development and for more than 15 years has been developing innovative technologies that are helping connect patients to machines to record physiologic information from the brain and nervous system. We are excited to expand our product offering into the brain health monitoring space,” said Shawn Regan, co-founder and CEO of Rhythmlink. This licensed patent is part of Rhythmlink’s patent portfolio, which includes 22 issued, pending or licensed patents. “By adding this patent to our portfolio Rhythmlink continues its quest to make brain health monitoring as ubiquitous as EKG electrodes and equipment have made heart health monitoring over the past 50 years.”
 
“This partnership is exciting because Rhythmlink has the capability to turn this intellectual property into a device that will dramatically improve the quality of care for patients with acute neurological deficits,” said Brian Alkire, intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring technician at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Ariz., and the architect of the initial concept for the patent. Alkire presented his idea to Dignity Health’s Intellectual Property Office, who partnered with Rhythmlink to develop it. “The problem I set out solve was that some patients with an acute onset of a neurological deficit that is time sensitive, such as stroke patients, did not have immediate access to electroneurodiagnostic testing. This is a serious problem since delayed treatment for these patients can mean long term neurological deficits. This technology allows the brain’s electrophysiology to be tested by onsite staff without the delay of waiting for the on call technologist to drive in from home.”
 
Rhythmlink International is a medical device manufacturing company specializing in devices that help connect patients to machines to record or elicit physiologic information. Rhythmlink designs, manufactures and distributes a variety of medical devices for intraoperative neuromonitoring, electroencephalography, evoked potentials, polysomnography, long-term monitoring epilepsy and critical care units. Founded by neurodiagnostic technologists and engineers in 2002, Rhythmlink enhances patient care worldwide by transforming medical device technology that links patients to equipment. Rhythmlink also offers custom packaging, custom products, private labeling and contract manufacturing services.
 
Dignity Health, one of the nation’s largest health care systems, is a 22-state network of more than 9,000 physicians, 63,000 employees, and 400 care centers, including hospitals, urgent and occupational care, imaging and surgery centers, home health, and primary care clinics. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., Dignity Health is dedicated to providing compassionate, high-quality, and affordable patient-centered care with special attention to the poor and underserved. In FY17, Dignity Health provided $2.6 billion in charitable care and community services.