Current Health’s Machine Learning Powered Wearable Receives FDA Clearance

The U.S. government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) department has recently given a Class II clearance to a machine learning powered healthcare wearable device that remotely tracks and analyzes multiple vital signs in patients. Scotland-based Current Health which received the clearance for its upper-arm wearable named “Current” told the press that their device is already used in hospitals, and the clearance states that “Current” can monitor patients at home and make note of their health parameters in between their doctor visits.

Current is an all-in-one wearable that provides ICU-level accuracy and tracks more vital signs that many of its counterparts. It also uses analytics to derive actionable insights. Due to these advantages, the platform is experiencing an overwhelming demand among customers in the U.S. Christopher McCann, the Chief Executive of Current Health said that the device is most commonly used by patients with heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who are subject to high rates of hospitalization resulting in significant healthcare spending.

The U.S. health officials have increasingly shifted to value-based patient care in order to reduce treatment expenses, decrease duration of hospital stay and reduce clinical re-admissions. Hence the providers must intervene earlier to enhance patient outcomes such as identifying patients at-risk after they leave hospital, and following up on the level of patient adherence to medicines, exercises, diet or any nutrition plan. Hospitals in the U.S. also face financial penalties for chalking up more re-admissions of heart failure patients. This has encouraged many providers to deploy remote health monitoring tools to track patient health. Through proper integrations, it is now possible for care providers to transfer valuable data from wearables, tele health systems and remote monitoring devices into their EHRs and health IT systems.

While there are many such wearable devices available in the healthcare market, what distinguishes Current Health is that it applies machine learning to analyze the data collected by the device and alerts doctors on any challenging variations in the health signs. The device notifies physicians on their mobile or in electronic health records, thus improving their visibility on at-risk patients who have left hospital after treatment.

At present, Current has partnered with six of the major health systems in the U.S. as well as with several NHS trusts in the U.K. with the aim of assisting these players in delivering home-based care for reducing re-admissions and preventable deaths.

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