Feeling chest pains? Check what your shirt says.
A Wearable E.C.G
Gary Sagiv, Senior Director of Business Development and deputy CEO of the Health Watch Corporation, is gazing into the distance: “Digital medicine is the future of modern medicine. I see it repeatedly all around the world. Digital medicine enables the transfer of a person’s health management to himself. I sincerely hope that this future will be realized soon. Our luck in Israel is that we live in the clouds: so many clever people, so much good will, so much Israeli technology. We should be proud of our achievements here. We will manage the world.”
Health Watch is a start-up company that developed a product called MasterCaution – a digital shirt that constitutes a platform for any sensor with which we want to measure physical information. “The shirt which we are near the final development of, includes sensors that monitor heart activity and body temperature. This is presently the only technology in the world that allows the wearing of a shirt with 12 E.C.G leads without cables.”
“How does it work? Take for example, an elderly man at home who feels unwell but doesn’t want to go to the doctor. He can wear the shirt, press the button, measure E.C.G and send the data via the internet directly to his physician or to our telephone center. The response is instantaneous: ‘Everything is O.K.’, ‘You should visit your doctor in the next few days’, or ‘Go to the hospital now’. The whole process takes approximately 51 minutes. By contrast, in reality, 80% of the people who arrive at the hospital emergency room due to chest pains, do not suffer from a cardiological problem. This is a waste both the hospital’s time and that of the individual.”
“We are in the final stage of development. We have received authorization from the FDA and the CE and already have pending orders. This has aroused interest worldwide, especially in the Third World where they have no access to modern medicine. The shirt can be given to a nurse in a field hospital for her patients to wear – and the results will be sent to a doctor sitting in the regional health center. At our telephone center, a physician from China can sit and treat a patient from Sudan. This is globalization in every sense of the word. More than fifty percent of the world’s population live in isolated locations far from immediate medical assistance. Our shirt enables an immediate solution that is easy to operate. This development has the potential to reduce the rate of heart attacks and strokes.”
The launch is planned in China, as our main investor is a Chinese corporation. It must be understood that from the perspective of digital medicine, America is in a decline, Europe is dead and South America is yet to awaken. China, Japan, Singapore and Australia – this is the future for the next decade and a half. The United States was very open to other technologies for the last 20 years, but now they are seriously behind the Far East. The Chinese are very open towards new technologies. All the existing stereotypes are simply not correct. They are a people with an extremely rich culture. I have been working in China for 20 years and have a high regard for them and our work together.”
“The general public needs to distinguish between medical equipment and wellness. It’s all very well to receive information such as how many steps I took today, and I am myself a gadget junkie – but most of them are not medical. Medical equipment that is based on algorithms and that can monitor a serious problem is something else entirely. I don’t just believe in the product, I also use it after I experienced a heart attack 3 and a half years ago. I exercise a lot and use the system for safety’s sake. In this way, I can see the state of my heart in real time and know that everything is O.K.”