Apr 5, 2019
Vidcast: https://youtu.be/7s2URrwjctc
Soon to enter the commercial market is a high-tech toilet seat that can monitor the performance of the heart and help to guide therapy for congestive heart failure. This bionic bathroom throne was developed by bioengineers at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
This very smart crapper topper can periodically measure the electrical and mechanical activity of the heart including EKG, heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, and the amount or blood pumped out with every beat of the heart, better known as the stroke volume. The seat takes all this data as well as the patient’s weight and transmits it back to the patient’ s medical team to help them plan therapy.
The seat will be marketed to hospitals for connection to their telemetry systems and then given to patients. The seats will more than pay for themselves by significantly reducing a hospital’s 30 day readmission rate and eliminating the penalty fees the hospital will owe Medicare.
The seat doesn’t play music or clean your bottom, but, for congestive heart failure patients, it may be lifesaving.
Nicholas J Conn, Karl Q Schwarz, David A Borkholder. In-Home Cardiovascular Monitoring System for Heart Failure: Comparative Study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2019; 7 (1): e12419 DOI: 10.2196/12419
#Heartfailure #CHF #toiletseat #telemetry #readmissions #homemonitoring