Today we “speak” with Dr. Dov Rubin, an expert in non-invasive medical technologies and Senior VP Marketing and Business Development at HealthWatch. He was also co-founder of NDS, the leading supplier of secure digital TV entertainment delivery to over 140 million viewers which he started in 1988 along with News Corporation’s Rupert Murdoch. More recently Rubin was President & CEO of Itamar-Medical, a publicly-traded company developing state-of-the-art biomedical products involved in non-invasive, early detection of heart disease and obstructive sleep apnea. Here’s how our interview went…
How would you pitch your company? What’s your elevator pitch?
HealthWatch has produced the first ECG-sensing textile garment that is a true, clinically tested, FDA-cleared medical device. Their breakthrough in textile technology enables continuous monitoring of 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) signals along with other vital signs such as respiration, skin temperature, falls, and motion — all via interwoven, fully washable, comfortable t-shirts communicating directly to personal smartphones and the cloud.
Our tagline is “Weaving Health into Everyday Life.” We mean just that.
What sets you apart from competitors?
HealthWatch’s ECG t-shirt (hWear) is the only FDA-cleared true wearable providing full useful medical information including hospital quality ECGs and not just heart rate or “wellness” information as the competition are forced to do.
What’s your business model?
Our business model is to sell garments and enable mHealth monitoring companies to generate recurring revenue for responding to the personal alerts as they occur. This should deliver the peace of mind we all seek. Eventually we believe people will purchase garments via the web.
Can you share some numbers? How many users do you have?
We will begin selling commercially toward the end of this year.
Where do you see the company going from here?
HealthWatch has a roadmap for textile-based products that will be introduced in the years ahead. This includes garments to enable pregnant women to monitor their unborn infants via their smartphone wearing a similar t-shirt, garments that will monitor dehydration, oxygen saturation in the blood, and even continuous blood pressure monitoring.
Where do you see the mHealth industry going?
We see mHealth offering a wide range of personal medical monitoring services. We believe that, with the introduction of continuous monitoring on a “Big Data” scale, physicians will have greater knowledge to detect potential problems long before they occur. For example, there is no known continuous monitoring of full, 12-lead ECGs. Physicians know people have silent heart attacks without them being aware. mHealth will be able to bridge that gap by offering continuous monitoring to all. Personal garment. Personal phone. Personal medicine.
How long are we from seeing modern mHealth technologies going mainstream?
We believe many of the existing telemonitoring facilities already have the infrastructure to interpret and respond to real-time medical issues. They could easily expand within 1-2 years to make continuous monitoring mainstream for the general population. Cardiac monitoring is only the tip of the iceberg. We will all eventually be monitored by our smartphones.