Digital platform will monitor Covid-19 patients remotely 

A new digital solution to help predict respiratory failure in Covid-19 patients who have left critical care has secured funding from government.

The Covid-19 Advanced Respiratory Physiological (CARP) platform is being trialled in respiratory failure patients across Glasgow after securing funding from the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office.

The technology is being developed in partnership between by digital transformation consultancy Storm ID, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Altair Medical and will help clinicians monitor patients continuously once they’ve left direct care.

A key challenge faced by hospitals in the coronavirus pandemic is the need to monitor an unprecedented number of patients. This is made more challenging by the fact that patients with Covid-19 are at risk of sudden deterioration. Respiratory rate and breathing events are a key predictor of deterioration but, until now, hospitals have been unable to monitor patient respiratory health remotely or at scale.

CARP will use Altair Medical’s wearable sensor and respiratory algorithms in conjunction with a clinical dashboard, made possible by Storm ID’s Lenus Health Platform, to gather patient respiratory data. The Lenus Health Platform allows the de-identified trial data to be aggregated for machine-learning analyses, to develop risk predictive models in-silico. If subsequent effectiveness trials proved the utility of these models, CARP would provide the infrastructure for clinicians to identify and triage at-risk patients in real-time.

The project is funded by the University of Glasgow as part of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) Rapid Research in Covid-19 programme.

“Our Lenus Health Platform supports remote patient monitoring and so it was only natural for us to look at how this could be made available to Covid-19 patients. The CARP solution will provide a basis for exploring how the NHS can use this innovative sensor to proactively monitor patients,” said Paul McGinness, Director at Storm ID.

“CARP will provide us with critical, real-time capability to identify and triage Covid-19 patients at risk of deterioration. This will greatly assist clinicians as patient numbers increase,” said Dr Chris Carlin, Consultant Physician at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Dr Bruce Henderson, CEO of Altair Medical, said: “The CARP trial has allowed unique insights into the effects of Covid-19 and the data analysis methods developed will enhance the use of Altair Medical’s technology in a range of respiratory conditions. This would not have been possible without the Lenus Health Platform – it provides a pivotal link in safely and securely maximising the real-world utility of biosensor data.”