Heart failure is a critical health problem affecting millions of people in North America. These patients with severe chronic heart failure must follow a very strict diet, otherwise a build-up of water in the body occurs. This water tends to accumulate in the lungs, leading to pulmonary edema, the number-one problem for this patient population. It’s also a major cause of emergency hospitalization for these people. On average, following a first hospitalization, 30% of patients will be readmitted within 90 days.
The main challenge these patients face is when they return home. Once discharged from hospital, these patients have no reliable way of knowing whether their condition is beginning to deteriorate. The problem lies in the fact that the accumulation of water in the lungs, known as pulmonary edema, produces no obvious symptoms at first. As a result, patients are usually unaware of this build-up until 4 days before hospitalization, which can lead to life-threatening complications.
The absence of predictable symptoms makes early detection of pulmonary edema difficult. At present, existing monitoring methods are not sufficiently accurate or practical to enable patients to detect this deterioration of their condition between their appointments with their clinician, which are normally every 6 months. Hospital visits for X-rays or MRIs are often necessary, but they are costly and cannot provide regular monitoring.
At Displaid, we offer a non-invasive medical imaging solution in the form of a chest belt that the patient wears once a day for around 5 minutes. Thanks to this innovative device, coupled with our powerful artificial intelligence algorithm, we are able to detect the presence of lung fluid in its asymptomatic phase. This technological advance enables patients and their doctors to closely monitor the evolution of the patient’s condition.
Remote access to this information for the patient’s doctor is a real asset. By receiving personalized alerts in real time, the doctor can proactively adjust the patient’s treatment or medication, thus preventing any complications. This considerably reduces the need for hospitalization and the frequency of medical check-ups.
At Displaid, our research and development team is constantly looking for improvements that can be brought to the healthcare environment.
Our multidisciplinary engineering team provides a high level of expertise and understanding of all the new projects we undertake.