Manipal Hospitals partners ConnectedLife to launch wearable tech for post-surgery care

Bengaluru: Manipal Hospitals has announced a strategic partnership with ConnectedLife built with Google Cloud to use Fitbit’s wearable technology with ConnectedLife’s virtual platform to monitor patient progress and empower ‘Continuity of Care Post-High-Risk Surgeries’.

Through this virtual platform, the clinical teams at Manipal Hospitals will gain a holistic view of the patient post-discharge, tailor their intervention precisely to the patient’s needs, and monitor them in their journey towards a healthy post-surgery recovery. This digital initiative aims to use wearable technology to stay connected with patients post surgeries like total knee replacement, angioplasty, cardiac bypass surgery, and other high-risk surgeries.

The advanced digital solution can remotely capture heart rate, oxygen saturation level, and activity metrics (sleep quality, steps taken, and pain score) both pre- and post-operatively. The technology optimizes patient care via triggering reminders to take medications or participate in physiotherapy and triggering warnings if there are significant deviations outside normal physiological parameters.

“This is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in the history of Manipal Hospitals and in the Indian healthcare ecosystem. Today, we have an excellent opportunity to develop a cohesive program for the continuity of care after hospitalization. Through this partnership, we are expecting post-surgery care to become seamless, as wearable technology will help us monitor certain critical parameters of patients who have undergone total knee replacement surgery, angioplasty, cardiac bypass surgery, and other high-risk surgeries,” said Dr. Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals.

“In the long run, it will help facilitate Manipal Hospitals to determine if the post-operative data collected from the ConnectedLife with Fitbit dashboard match with functional outcomes and improved patient satisfaction post-surgery. This data will allow us to understand and develop new methods in cost-effectiveness, compliance, comfort, and ease of use, all while giving us accurate data on the vitals,” said Mr. Dilip Jose, MD & CEO, Manipal Hospitals.

Alok Shankar, Country Manager for Fitbit India said, “We continue to work with ConnectedLife to facilitate engagement with strategic partners like Manipal Hospitals to develop and implement solutions that play a key role in building the digital health ecosystem in India. This programme gives people a better view of their health metrics, which can help empower them to better manage their recovery.”

“We are honoured to partner with Manipal Hospitals and Fitbit in bringing about a digital transformation within the Indian health eco-system to continuity of care post-high-risk surgeries. For ConnectedLife this is an incredible opportunity to deliver at scale and further advance the application of easy-to-use smartphone and wearable technology, and novel data analytics and AI, and population health management tools. With our trusted, secure, and scalable enterprise infrastructure, ConnectedLife will deploy new features and capabilities based on patient and clinician feedback every two to four weeks, and maintain the strictest accountability for data acquisition, privacy and protection,” said Mr. Daryl Arnold, Founder & CEO, ConnectedLife.