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EyeQue

LAS VEGAS — Unless you lot've been living under a rock, or are perhaps a company executive or a member of Congress with a gold-plated, fully paid-for insurance plan, you know healthcare costs in the United States have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. The result, which has been politically charged with the recent moves to defang the Affordable Care Act, is non simply virtually insurance costs. High health insurance premiums simply reflect a complex health care system that has seen little pregnant structural modify to reduce costs or new business models, or to use a favored word in tech, disruption. But we know technology has caused significant disruption in a host of industries. Healthcare is ripe for innovations that enable that disruption.

At we saw at CES 2022, small and big companies are taking reward of consumer technology to enable new models and empower people to monitor and manage their wellness and health. Here are our favorites looking to shake up the status quo in several areas.

Sleep

Sleep is an of import factor in maintaining good health, and recent enquiry suggests lack of sleep (or "quality sleep") can result in many things from weight gain to premature aging — besides just feeling perpetually tired. Wearables like Fitbit, along with other bands and smartwatches, already have apps to track slumber based on movement, heart rate, and breathing patterns, but non anybody wants to wear a ring to sleep. The new trend is to utilise "contactless" devices that you tin identify near you or in your bed to runway and monitor your sleep.

To that terminate, a couple of new devices have different approaches. Nokia Sleep is a pad that is places under your mattress, and deploys sensors and a mobile app to rail eye charge per unit, breathing patterns, and snoring. Algorithms make sense of the sensor data to requite y'all a sleep score, and estimate how much REM slumber y'all go. As a plus, the device can be integrated with the IFTTT service to tie into home automation scenarios, as in turning thermostats up or down, and lights on and off depending on your sleep and waking preferences.

SleepScore Max (from startup SleepScore labs) is also a contactless solution, but employs a device that sits on a nightstand and looks a bit similar a Bluetooth speaker. The companion app asks some questions near alcohol and caffeine consumption to gain more insight into variables that can affect sleep. So the device uses bio motion analysis (similar to echolocation) to determine quantity and quality of slumber, as well as monitoring environmentals similar temperature. Information technology aggregates that into a numerical sleep score likewise as analysis of quality of sleep and phases. The company as well aims to improve sleep patterns by curating and recommending products around lighting, pillows, and sound therapy based on the private'southward personal sleep data.

Sleepscore Max

Fertility

The tendency to contact free devices is non limited to sleep tracking. For couples trying to get pregnant, fertility monitoring and figuring when is the optimal fourth dimension of the month for formulation can exist a chore. Current solutions involve patches, bracelets, urinating on sticks, and saliva tests. EarlySense Percept is a device similar to Nokia's sleep pad, in that goes nether a mattress and monitors sleep patterns, heart rate, and breathing. Coupled with an AI algorithm, it monitors that data, which determines stress factors that over fourth dimension are accurate predictors of ovulation cycles. The more the device is used, the more accurate the algorithm becomes, and has the power to predict menstrual cycles three months in advance to help in planning. The company claims to predict cycles 31 percent more accurately than the typical calendar method that has been used for years, and offers upwardly to a half dozen-solar day fertility window that indicate the optimal times to excogitate.

Breastfeeding

To continue in the vein of empowering women, the Willow clothing breast pump could be a revolution for women who are breastfeeding their babies. Breast pumps are heavy and unwieldy, and portable solutions have not been good. Willow is a smart breast pump that tin can be worn under a bra. It's quiet, uses disposable BPA-gratis recyclable and dispensable bags to store pumped milk, and syncs with the Willow app to runway the volume of pumped breast milk. The bags have 1-mode valves to ensure safety from contagion. The pump knows when to stop pumping, with the companion app learning from the time and volume and sensing the letdown of the breast. For women that want to breastfeed merely work, accept other kids to take care of, and take decorated schedules, this solution makes it far easier to continue the wellness benefits of breastfeeding longer than they might otherwise be able to.

Willow Breast Pump Kit

UV Exposure

Laroche-Posay's UV Sense is a battery gratis UV sensor that can rail your UV exposure. It communicates with a companion iOS or Android app via NFC, and uniquely is likewise powered past NFC. This is i of several digital projects emerging from L'Oreal's (yes, the beauty giant) technology incubator. The device is less than 2mm in width and 9mm in diameter, and tin can exist stuck on the wristband of a habiliment. Able to hold three months of UV exposure data at a time, it's reusable and the adhesive can be stuck on well-nigh any exposed part of the wearer. UV exposure can affect aging likewise as skin cancer, and few people actually think about how much time they're exposed or what levels are harmful. This device tin shed calorie-free on that (pun intended). In the future, I could see the applied science integrated into a smartwatch or fitness ring, or even hats or clothing.

Vision

Vision issues and the need for correction is typically something that people get to a professional person for evaluation. The EyeQue Insight Insight is a mobile app and hardware viewer gear up that aims to enable people to exam their ain vision. While regulations vary in unlike countries and you yet need a prescription in the US to get contacts or eyeglasses, EyeQue can help you determine if you have an issue with your vision, if your current prescription is okay, or whether you demand that visit to a professional.

The app administers the typical vision examination usually done in an office using a viewer you lot attach to your smartphone. The company notes that there are millions of people in the earth with easier access to a smartphone than an heart care professional, and then the solution tin help detect problems with children's eyesight or other people for whom access to a vision test is non an easy or cheap proposition. For older people, this type of test can also determine what type of reading spectacles they might crave. Magnified reading glasses don't require prescriptions, and this type of vision test that y'all can do every bit many times as yous similar, every bit opposed to once a year or every few years, empowers people to monitor their vision health and know when they might need to seek assist.

Hearing

Similar to vision, people with hearing problems typically will be referred to an audiologist for testing. Once again, regulations vary as to medical devices that assist with hearing. In the The states, the FDA recently announced it would enable people over 18 years of age to sign a waiver that they don't demand a medical evaluation to buy a hearing help. Hearing aids are expensive, partly considering of the technology they employ, but besides because of the audiologist channels they are sold through. Equally in eyeglasses, eastward-commerce capabilities and the ability to deliver information and service over the internet has the power to squeeze cost out of the business concern.

Eargo Hearing Help

Eargo is one of several companies looking to upend the traditional hearing help business concern. A well-funded Silicon Valley startup, it's making hearing aids using some cobweb materials that offer a unique fit and virtually invisible look for the wearer. They're rechargeable and packaged similarly to high-end audio earbuds. Part of their innovation is to accept trained audiologists on staff, and a procedure where the customer answers some questions near their hearing problems. The professionals help make up one's mind whether you need a hearing assistance, and the device is already tuned, charged, and ready to use when delivered. Dissimilar other hearing aids, there is non much tuning to practice on Eargo other than some adjustments users can practice with simple taps on the ear. While designed for mild-to-moderate hearing loss and not severe cases, Eargo is looking to bring restored hearing to a large number of people with reduced complexity and cost.

Diabetes

DiabiLive is a mobile and spider web application that will enable people living with diabetes to meliorate monitor and manage their care. There are a number of glucose-monitoring devices and solutions, but one difficult aspect of managing insulin dosage is activity and caloric intake too equally glycemic levels. The app takes all that data into account into calculating the right insulin dosage, as the dosage tin can be hard to manage. Bated from that, the app has opt-in capabilities to bring together a community of users effectually the world, so others can share their experiences and help each other.

IV Leakage

Moving into areas of applied science applied to professional person medical services, ivWatch is a company that has spent 15 years perfecting a solution to a big problem with intravenous infiltrations. 4 infiltrations and extravasations — IVs leaking exterior of veins — can cause moderate to severe issues, from infections to phlebitis and tissue necrosis. It'south a common problem with people who are on constant IVs, especially cancer patients on immunotherapy. Typically, it's up to nurses to monitor IVs and ensure that infiltrations are caught early and stopped. IvWatch'southward device, costing virtually $3,000, employs sensors that use about-infrared low-cal to detect changes in the optical properties of tissue almost the Iv insertion indicate. The device is currently in clinical testing, and is demonstrating a high caste of sensitivity in detecting infiltrations. If a problem is detected, it can monitor the nurse so that it'southward addressed early before any serious symptoms occur.

Medical Training

Virtual reality continues to advance given rapid increases in graphics computing power and the design of headsets and peripherals. While many of the states might think of the technology for gaming and immersive amusement, SimforHealth is a French visitor that has designs immersive VR grooming solutions medical training. I had the opportunity to experience the simulation at HTC Vive's suite at CES, and it was illuminating. The simulation had the intern making an incision on a patient on an operating tabular array, locating a vein, and placing a catheter in the vein, while using an ultrasound monitor that helps identify the vein. Then I tried it; while the virtual patient bled to decease many times over with my bumbling hands, the creators explained to me the simulation teaches the procedure of the procedure in a realistic, immersive style without take a chance, preparing the students for the pressures of the real surround.

Motion Sickness

Reliefband 2.0

For people who get nauseated easily from motion sickness, Reliefband Technologies is offer a drug free manner to get relief. The device is a wristband that users tin can wear to counter nausea and airsickness symptoms from motility sickness, morning time sickness, chemotherapy, and VR activities. The applied science behind it is neuromodulation, which has been around for xv years and is endorsed by healthcare professionals. A metallic conductor in the band emits programmed pulses with highly specific waveforms, frequency, and intensity to modulate the median nerve on the underside of the wrist. This stimulation of the fretfulness uses the body'south natural neural pathways to block the waves of nausea produced by the tummy.

Cannabis

Finally, for something a bit unlike in the wellness department, Oblend is making a device aiming to exist the "globe's commencement home dispensary." The device allows the user to make their ain cannabis-infused massage oils, culinary oils, herbal drinks additives, and tinctures. The device links to an app that can besides recommend recipes. The business model is somewhat like a Nespresso or Sodastream machine, where you buy a product that takes a proprietary packaging of the supply. Oblend will sell supplies of pods like oils and herbals for blending, merely the customer supplies the cannabis. Equally 18 states have laws on the books regarding specifics about the legality of CBD, the main ingredient of medical cannabis products, perhaps this is a market prepare to go college.