Fluid monitoring for Heart Failure Patients

In Europe, heart failure affects at least 15 million people and causes more than 1.8 million hospitalisations. The estimated annual cost of heart failure is approximately 2% of European health care expenditure, which is equivalent to approx. 283 billion NOK. In Norway, the hospital yearly treatment cost of heart failure patients is estimated to be close 700 million NOK. Despite improvements in medical therapy, 50 percent of patients hospitalised for heart failure are readmitted within six months of discharge, with the highest readmission rates occurring in the first 30 days. The most common cause for re-hospitalisation in patients with heart failure is fluid overload. Even though clinicians are familiar with the problem, they lack the necessary tools to effectively prevent fluid imbalances ? especially post-discharge when patients are back home and primarily manage their own health. Consequently, Mode Sensors and Oslo University Hospital strive to develop a non-invasive sensor-patch system, called Re:Balans, for accurate, continuous and remote fluid monitoring, to meet the increasing heart failure problem by empowering patients, together with healthcare professionals, to maintain a healthy fluid balance and prevent fluid imbalances. If we are successful, our innovation will have a major socioeconomic impact and contribute to benefits such as: 1) improved the quality of life among patients; 2) reduced hospital readmission due to fluid overload; 3) increased capacity in hospitals by replacing tedious on-site visits with an effective remote monitoring tool.

This IPN-project is collaboration project between Mode Sensors and Oslo University Hospital to develop and clinically validate a wearable and cloud-connected sensor-system for fluid monitoring. The system is called Re:Balans and is intended for the post-discharge fluid monitoring of heart failure patients to give clinicians: 1) an early indicator of worsening heart failure so that they can do appropriate interventions to avert serious progression and complications; 2) better control over the patient’s response to the treatment plan (e.g. titration of medication). Such a connected medical device could reap substantial socioeconomic benefits, such as improving quality of life among patients, reducing readmissions of heart failure patient due to fluid overload, and improving the post-discharge follow-up efficiency. The main R&D-challenge is to develop a medically-acceptable prototype system for fluid monitoring that is able to compensate for: 1) co-factors and measurement artefacts affecting our system's main sensor-principle; 2) heart failure patient's complex fluid pathophysiology.