How 24/7 remote cardiac monitoring can cut diagnosis time, according to one tech company

It was the early days of the pandemic, and the coronavirus's cascading effects on the heart soon began to cause alarm.

The use of certain drugs like hydroxychloroquine to treat patients were causing potentially dangerous rapid heart rates, while COVID-related insomnia was linked to increased cardiovascular disease risk. Cardiologists, along with other essential health services across the globe, were closing.

But one health tech company had a solution, and it wasn’t new. 

InfoBionic, founded in 2011, claims to offer the only full disclosure remote cardiac monitoring device on the market, one that allows prescribing physicians to see around-the-clock data, mimicking telemetry services in a hospital setting. This is a challenging feat from a technology standpoint, InfoBionic CEO Stuart Long told Fierce Healthcare, because it requires recording and streaming data comprising thousands or even hundreds of thousands of heartbeats daily, per patient, in an accessible way. 

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What most companies offer, Long explained, is a monitor that sends select snippets of data to a third party before they reach a physician, which can take an unnecessarily long time. By eliminating the need for a middleman and streamlining data directly to providers, InfoBionic claims to significantly reduce time to diagnosis. 

“It’s not disruptive. It’s just pure innovation in terms of capturing and querying the data,” Long said. 

InfoBionic’s success in the market was affirmed when it landed Mayo Clinic as a client right as COVID-19 hit, Long said, and then as a partner. Together, using InfoBionic’s device and Mayo Clinic’s call center, the service offers certified rhythm analysis and customized cardiac alerts per patient.

Long believes this type of solution and virtual care, in general, is a “massive step toward value-based care” and toward returning control to the hands of the provider. He is hopeful that someday soon, Mayo Clinic’s offering could be available at a bundled price.

Though he acknowledged most payers' systems are deeply embedded in fee-for-service models and that it would take time to reorient their billing codes, Long expects to see changes with big payers in 2023.