Put Away the Sphygmomanometer

Put away the what? The Sphygmomanometer, also known as the blood pressure monitor, has always relied on the inflatable cuff that collapses and then releases the artery under the cuff in a controlled manner, monitored by your healthcare professional, yourself or a digital device to record systolic and diastolic pressure and deliver a set of numbers that is either good or worrisome. If you are among the nearly half of U.S. adults (47% per the CDC) with hypertension (high blood pressure), you might agree that the Sphygmomanometer is as cumbersome to manage by yourself as it is to pronounce.

At CES 2023, Valencell, an innovator in digital health solutions with a focus on chronic disease management, announced plans to launch a product line in the digital health sector. The company is leading with its new solution to help people monitor and manage hypertension by combining a fingertip device to measure blood pressure with an app to record the measurement, without the need for a cuff or calibration.

The device is designed to measure blood pressure in less than a minute using a small probe on the middle finger. Sensors within the device use reflected light to measure blood flow patterns. Blood pressure will be calculated using proprietary AI algorithms developed from datasets of more than 7,000 patients, combined with the wearer’s physical characteristics (age, weight, gender, height). The diastolic and systolic results are then displayed on the device’s built-in screen and transmitted to the app via Bluetooth.

While a Valencell-branded line would be a new avenue for the company, it is by no means a newcomer to the digital health space. The company was founded in 2006 with a vision to help people live longer, healthier lives, and its inventions, technologies and algorithms can be found in millions of wearable devices in the market from companies including Samsung, Bose, Jabra, Huawei and Sony. The company sees its technology as having “the potential to realize the dream of seamless chronic disease management through easy-to-use, high-compliance digital health solutions.”

The fingertip device, currently pending FDA clearance, is a first step in delivering this portfolio of digital therapeutics. According to Dr. Steven LeBoeuf, President and Co-Founder of Valencell, “beginning with the number one silent killer, hypertension, Valencell is developing digital health solutions that take out all the friction and barriers to capturing and acting on health data to help make it easier for people to take control over their health, live longer, healthier and more productive lives.”

The new device has been designed as a stand-alone blood pressure monitor, but Valencell claims that when paired with the accompanying app it has the potential to become a powerful tool to help manage hypertension. The mobile app will track and store readings and allow users to set reminders to take their blood pressure. Users will also have the ability to view trends over time, track the frequency of their measurements, download the data, and to share the data — a key element in the “living in place” intelligent home lifestyle for our aging parents and friends.