A New Weapon in the Fight Against Heart Failure

A 30-second, at-home test can alert those with pre-existing cardiac conditions to abnormalities within their heart before the onset of any symptoms. The intracardiac data it generates enables caregivers to clinically intervene before the problem escalates, potentially saving individuals with structural heart disease from a life-threatening incident.

Hemotag, from Boca Raton-based Aventusoft, is applied to the chest and captures vibrations from three locations that assess valve signatures, cardiac pressure, and function. It provides a real-time assessment and warning, when necessary, for those living with heart failure, coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, other cardiomyopathies, and atrial fibrillation.

A clinical trial hosted by Memorial Cardiac & Vascular Institute led to the facility being the first in Florida to add Hemotag to its remote patient monitoring program and is being credited for helping one chronically-ill man reach his 90^th birthday.

“We’ve already published studies about two of our cases, and have others whose vitals we’re monitoring with this technology,” said Iani Patsias, MD, a Memorial Healthcare System physician specializing in advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. “It’s a non-invasive way to get information that helps us keep acute cases from requiring hospitalization.”

Hemotag acquires and reports on vibrational waveforms produced by heart contractions that are transmitted to the chest wall, where the timing of these events can be an indicator of irregularities in an adult’s cardiac cycle. The data can be used by physicians to detect the degree of congestion in heart failure patients that might take hours longer to determine through traditional catheterization or blood draws.

“Hemotag is proving to be a valuable tool among the resources we provide patients to monitor their health at home,” said Bill Manzie, director of Telehealth Strategy at Memorial Healthcare System. “It fits within the value-based approach we take to care that focuses on proactively keeping people healthy instead of just being a destination when a crisis occurs.”

According to Aventusoft, there are approximately six million Americans with structural heart disease discharged from hospitals each year and don’t have access to vital heart information once at home.