For Health Insurers
Guardio®, helps to reduce healthcare costs
The Guardio®-App enables patients the recording of electrocardiograms (ECGs) – by simply placing the smartphone on the chest. In addition to this, Guardio is also super easy to use. Due to its potential of reducing the diagnostic gap – between consultations of speacialists – Guardio helps to prevent secondary diseases and increasing treatment costs.
GUARDIO® – THE SMART ECG
Guardio® utilizes advanced methods of artificial intelligence to record electrocardiograms without any electrodes. To this end, Guardio® utilizes the Heart.AI engine (patent pending) that is based on artificial intelligence. The engine transforms the motions of the human heart, so-called seismocardiograms (SCG), into the golden standard of non-imaging cardiac diagnostics: the electrocardiogram (ECG).
The artificial intelligence was developed to learn relationships between the SCG and the ECG and to apply these to new SCGs, thus transforming them unto ECGs. For the development of the Heart.AI engine, we recorded millions of data points of different patients with various pathologies in clinical settings. We cooperate with clinical partners and experts in the fields of cardiology, rhythmology and electrophysiology.
The data is trained into the neural network of our app and enables the transformation. This approach ensures that our calculations are clinically accurate.
RELIABLE AND ACCURATE
Guardio® is developed with clinical accuracy in mind! To this end, we are continuously testing Guardio® with respect to the current state of the art technologies. In addition, we are working together with domain experts to receive evaluations of our capabilities with regard to both rhythmologic diagnostic quality as well as morphologic diagnostic quality. Guardio® is unaffected by sex, age, physique, or underlying pathology of the patients. The Guardio® technology is the result of years of research and development.
The figure shows a seismocardiogram (SCG) that was recorded by a standard smartphone (1). The signal is transformed into an electrocardiogram (ECG) by the Heart.AI engine (2). Step (3) shows a direct comparison with a classical electrode-based ECG that was recorded simultaneously (ground truth marked in blue).
DELAYED DIAGNOSES INCREASE COSTS
Patients that have experienced an odyssey of doctors visits and examinations without receiving a final diagnosis experience frustration and often suffer from secondary diseases such as depression or anxiety disorders. Very often, pathologies that can be treated very efficiently are hard to detect with current diagnostic means due to their intermittend behavior. A study in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation shows that the recognition rate in case of a 24-hour-ECG is only 4.8%⁶, and even the recognition rate of an 7-day-ECG lies merely at 12.5%⁶. This means that the majority of patients are left undiagnosed. This diagnostic gap increases the risk of severe secondary diseases such as stroke in case of rhythm disorders, e.g., atrial fibrillation. The risk is cumulating year over year with an absence of a diagnosis and a suitable treatment. These effects increase the costs for the healthcare system due to the resulting subsequent treatments. In case of atrial fibrillation, the cost of conventional medical treatment usually exceeds the cost of an ablation therapy with subsequent monitoring approximately 3 to 5 years after the curative treatment.
Patients with a final diagnosis and initiated treatment of a rhythm disorder also require aftercare in the form of subsequent monitoring. Here, Guardio® offers a simple and easy as well as accessible technology for monitoring in aftercare.
Source: BMG
people per year die of cardiac diseases, according to the WHO¹
%
of all people from the age of 40 years suffer from atrial fibrillation (a major cause of stroke)²
%
of all strokes are caused by atrial fibrillation³
usually pass between the first consultation of a physician and the final diagnosis⁴
is the usual time patients in Germany have to wait for appointments at a cardiologist⁵
%
is the recognition rate for atrial fibrillation in 24-hour-ECGs⁶
%
is the recognition rate for atrial fibrillation in 7-day-ECGs⁶
%
of detected rhythm disorders are incidental findings⁷
¹ WHO, 2019 - https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cardiovascular-diseases-(cvds)
² Fuster V, Rydén LE, Cannom DS et al. Circulation 2006; 114:e257-e354
³ Ntaios G., Papavasileiou V., Diener H. C., Makaritsis K., Michel P.: Nonvitamin-k-antagonist oral anticoagulants in patients with atrial fibrillation and previous stroke or transient ischemic attack: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Stroke 2012; 43: 3298–304
⁴ Lauschke, J., Schneider, J., Schneider, R., Nesselmann, C., Tischer, T., Glass, A., & Bänsch, D. (2015). Electrophysiological studies in patients with paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardias but no electrocardiogram documentation: findings from a prospective registry. EP Europace, 17(5), 801-806.
⁵ Ärzteblatt, 2011 - https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/46656/AOK-Studie-wirft-Aerzten-Benachteiligung-von-Kassenpatienten-vor
⁶ Stahrenberg, et al. Enhanced detection of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation by early and prolonged continuous holter monitoring in patients with cerebral ischemia presenting in sinus rhythm. Stroke, 41(12), 2884–2888.
⁷ DGK Herztage Berlin, 2019 – https://dgk.org/pressemitteilungen/dgk-herztage-2019/nutzen-und-effizienz-von-implantierbaren-ereignisrekordern-im-klinischen-alltag/
SIMPLICITY IS THE ULTIMATE SOPHISTICATION
Guardio® records multichannel ECGs without expensive extra hardware – you insurees are simply using their own smartphones.
The recording is performed by initiating a measurement within the app. Your insurees simply place the device on their chest. The recording starts as soon as the user is resting. In case the device is placed incorrectly, the Guardio® app provides a feedback and actively helps the user to find the optimal position.