New virtual ward for atrial fibrillation puts heart health at the patients' fingertips

Freeing up hospital beds and avoiding unnecessary outpatient appointments, Ortus-iHealth, a leading provider of remote outpatient services and virtual wards, and Happitech, the hardware-free heart rhythm monitoring solution, have partnered to launch a new atrial fibrillation virtual ward.

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disorder affecting over 1.5 million people in the UK. It is estimated that there are at least another 270,000 people in the UK who remain undiagnosed and unaware.

Someone with atrial fibrillation is five times more likely to have a potentially fatal or life-changing stroke. Atrial fibrillation is the most common form of abnormal heart rhythm and is believed to contribute to one in five strokes.

The Ortus-iHealth’s and Happitech partnership enables patients enrolled in the AF Virtual Ward to remotely monitor heart rhythm at home using just the camera and flash on a smartphone and detect the early signs of AF without the need for a specialist device. 

The Ortus-iHealth AF virtual ward will reduce the time patients need to spend in the hospital, avoid them having to attend unnecessary outpatient appointments, and provide patients with reassurance that they are being cared for by the hospital cardiology team even when they are in their own homes.

Happitech's clinically validated, non-invasive technology uses photoplethysmography (PPG) via the camera and flash on any iOS or Android smartphone to detect volumetric changes in blood in the fingertip. Blood absorbs light and each pulse from the heart increases the blood flow in the body and fingertips. It is therefore possible to keep track of changes in heart rhythm by measuring the changes in light absorption.

Patients enrolled in the Ortus-iHealth AF Virtual Ward are invited to download the Ortus-iHealth ManageMyHealth app on their own smartphones and access the Happitech heart rhythm monitoring function within the app. Voice instructions via the app guide the patient to place a finger on the smartphone camera for 60-90 seconds to detect the heart rhythm. The results are sent directly to a clinician-facing dashboard allowing for timely intervention and management, as appropriate, by the AF Virtual Ward team.

"We are delighted to partner with Happitech to launch this new AF virtual ward and to provide patients with access to cutting-edge, convenient, remote, heart rhythm detection and monitoring," said Dr Debashish Das CEO & Co-founder of Ortus-iHealth . "Our virtual cardiology wards, including this for AF, aim to put patients at the centre of the highest quality care. We believe that through our partnership with Happitech we will help empower patients, give them peace of mind, and help healthcare providers to improve the efficiency of cardiology services.”

"We are excited to work with Ortus-iHeath to incorporate our technology into their AF virtual ward," said Yosef Safi Harb, CEO of Happitech. "Our patient-friendly solution has been clinically validated, and we are confident that it provides a valuable tool for the early detection and management of AF."