The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (MACOC) named Sensiotec Inc. — an ATDC Select Company — its 2014 Phoenix Award HealthCare Information Technology Startup Company of the Year.
The award was presented at MACOC’s fifth annual Health IT Leadership Summit and was given for Sensiotec’s Virtual Medical Assistant (VMA), the world’s first, completely non-contact, physiological sensing platform.
VMA also is cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“Sensiotec is on a transformative journey to shape the future of patient care,” Robert Arkin, the company’s CEO and founder, said in a statement. “We’ve commercialized a game changer that has huge implications for improving patient outcomes and saving money both inside and outside hospitals across the healthcare continuum.”
The VMA connects the non-contact sensor panel that is placed contact-free under the patient’s bed or chair to a web app. The sensor panel, which the FDA has cleared for safety and accuracy, transmits and receives continuous ultra-low power radar signals that reflect off the patient’s internal organs, torso and limbs.
After receiving the reflected signals, the panel processes and filters the signals, relaying continuous physiological data about the patient through the web app. The web app identifies cardiorespiratory instability and patient agitation and manages bed fall and pressure ulcer risk. This supports early diagnosis and intervention, improves quality of care and enhances patient safety both remotely and at the point of care.
Since Sensiotec’s inception, the company has committed about $6.7 million to commercializing the VMA technology platform.
The award follows Sensiotec’s strategic partnership with WellStar Health System, Georgia’s largest not-for-profit health system, and WellStar’s Center for Health Transformation. In addition to a strategic equity investment in Sensiotec, WellStar will deploy Sensiotec’s VMA in diverse clinical settings, such as hospitals, sleep labs, long-term residential care and home care.
In addition to its alliance with WellStar/CHT and the MACOC Health IT Startup of the Year Award, TEDMED named Sensiotec a “transformative startup that can shape the future of medicine.” And earlier this year, Sensiotec received the “Best of the Best” Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies Award and the People’s Choice Award for Breakthrough Technology from the Technology Association of Georgia.
Sensiotec also is the recipient of the Healthcare Heroes Award for Innovation.
It became an ATDC Select Company in 2013.