Alio, Inc. announces the release of a new feature for its remote monitoring platform which notifies clinical care teams when there is a gap in typical acoustic data from a patient’s vascular access site. While the platform was FDA-cleared in March of this year to function as a stethoscope and collect auscultation data, this new notification draws the clinician’s attention to a specific set of recordings which indicate the absence of typical sound data. The standard approach to monitoring a patient’s vascular access has required in-person manual readings with a stethoscope. Rather than manually taking readings, the Alio SmartPatch automatically takes readings and makes it possible for clinicians to monitor a patient’s vascular access remotely with no action required from the patient.
The Alio Remote Monitoring Platform is powered by a SmartPatch, hub and portal, and is FDA-cleared to non-invasively capture multiple metrics including potassium, hematocrit, hemoglobin, auscultation, heart rate, and skin temperature.
Sound data from the vascular access is essential in managing an ESKD patient’s condition and preserving a critical lifeline. A compromised access is one of the most common and costly complications for patients on dialysis. In the first year after fistula formation, approximately 70–86% of fistulas require two or three interventions per patient to facilitate maturation and maintain function. Vascular access-related complications and associated interventions account for almost one-third of hospital admissions among patients receiving hemodialysis. In addition to being widely prevalent, it is also a costly complication with nearly $3 billion spent annually on access-related procedures and care. Considering in the U.S. alone there are over 800,000 people living with ESKD and roughly 60% are on hemodialysis, these costs are projected to continually increase.
It is essential to provide clinicians with tools which better equip them to monitor, manage, and preserve a patient’s vascular access when alternatives like a catheter create even greater risk and higher rates of complication. Loss of a patent fistula means a patient needs additional surgery and has only a few sites appropriate for fistula creation which makes the patient one step closer to an indwelling catheter. Patients with a tunneled catheter have a risk of death from septicaemia about sevenfold higher than patients with a graft or fistula. In the U.S., sepsis is also the most expensive reason for hospitalization. With the average hospital stay for treating sepsis lasting roughly a week, hospitalization costs alone range from $13,000-44,000 depending on the severity of the infection.
The Alio Remote Monitoring Platform was created explicitly with the intention of helping ESKD patients and their clinical care teams avoid costly and potentially morbid complications. Alio continues its research and development efforts to increase its capabilities in service of this vulnerable patient population.
“Building on our partnership with LifeLine, we look forward to adding on new features in the coming years including an early warning system, and early clinical data has shown how we correlate well with a Duplex ultrasound for volumetric blood flow, and an angiogram for stenosis,” said David Kuraguntla, CEO and co-founder of Alio. “We are excited to announce we’ve taken this next step to eventually eradicate access failure entirely. In addition to making critical intervention points possible, this will also reduce friction for already overburdened care teams and bring us one step closer to making precision medicine possible.”
Outside of the standard monthly blood draw, clinicians and patients are left with little to no insight into key metrics for managing these complications. The Alio Remote Monitoring Platform makes it possible for clinicians to receive timely notifications regarding their patients. This new feature notifies clinicians when there is a gap in typical acoustic data and allows clinical care teams to prioritize resources and follow up with patients more proactively. The notification is issued when the Alio SmartPatch has not received typical sound data during four consecutive readings which usually take place over a 12 hour period. Atypical acoustic data or a lack of acoustic data can occur due to a number of causes including compromised vasculature, the patient removing the patch, and improper placement of the patch.
“It’s not possible for me to take a traditional stethoscope and listen to each one of my patient’s vascular access eight times a day. And, frequently, clinical care teams often don’t know an access has failed until they attempt cannulation for routine dialysis treatment” said Dr. David Whittaker, Vascular Surgeon and Chief Medical Officer of Alio. “Alio’s technology makes it possible for us to better manage patient health at the individual level while also enabling scale and mitigating costly adverse health events within a healthcare enterprise. By having access to the type of acoustic data Alio’s SmartPatch provides, we are able to take necessary clinical action much sooner which is better for the patient’s health.”
SOURCE: PRNewswire
