A new ‘smart’ toilet by the New York tech firm Casana that monitors heart rate and oxygenation could help healthcare providers and patients to better monitor health while recovering at home.
On Monday, the firm announced it has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Heart Seat which would enable effortless measurement of oxygenation and heart rate. The company will also pursue further filings to get clearance to measure blood pressure and aims to launch the product by the end of this year.
The toilet seat has sensors to collect vital sign information that is sent to a remote dashboard where a doctor can monitor a patient’s vital signs and detect any anomalies.
In order to differentiate who is using the seat, the smart toilet has an initial configuration that makes the toilet report data only when it identifies that it’s the patient who sat on the seat.
“This clearance is a critical step on our journey to commercialize the Heart Seat,” Casana CEO Austin McChord said. “This brings us one step closer to helping patients and healthcare providers across the US manage their health at home.”
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“As medicine moves from the physician’s office into the home, accurate home monitoring of medical parameters is increasingly important,” director of the Comprehensive Hypertension Center at UChicago Dr. George Bakris said, adding that the approval is a critical validation for the Heart Seat.
According to a report by the analytics firm Grand View Research, the global home healthcare market was worth USD $305.7 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.9 per cent from 2021-2028.
A Commonwealth Fund report found that programs like “hospital at home” allow patients to receive acute care in the comfort of their own homes, resulting in fewer complications and a cost reduction of over 30 per cent. This is expected to have a significant impact on the market as it prioritizes patient comfort.
