Philips (NYSE:PHG) and Masimo (Nasdaq:MASI) today announced that they expanded their patient monitoring partnership to home telehealth applications.
The companies extended their partnership to augment patient monitoring capabilities at home with the Masimo W1 watch. The advanced health-tracking watch first launched to early adopters in May 2022. It holds CE mark approval while FDA clearance is pending.
This system represents part of Masimo’s recently announced plan to turn home entertainment systems into health hubs.
Philips and Masimo plan to integrate W1 into Philips’ enterprise patient monitoring ecosystem to advance telemonitoring and telehealth. The companies expect to highlight their plans at Arab Health 2023 later this month.
Bilal Muhsin, Chief Operating Officer of Masimo Healthcare, said, “Expanding our partnership with Philips in this way is a win-win for patients and clinicians everywhere, and is an important part of our multi-year plan to bring the best of hospital monitoring to the home while continuing to improve access to quality hospital care,” said Masimo COO Bilal Muhsin.
Masimo W1 offers accurate, continuous pulse oximetry measurements, among other insightful data. It can relay information to Philips’ patient monitoring ecosystem for remote clinician surveillance.
“At Philips, we believe in an open ecosystem of information that enables physicians in their daily routine, allows for them to access and process vital patient information and deploy a wide range of measurements and patient-worn technologies,” said Christoph Pedain, GM, hospital patient monitoring at Philips. “Our integration of the latest Masimo technologies is a testament to that strategy and we are delighted to deepen our relationship with Masimo.”
Medical-grade watch space continues to heat up
A number of companies develop watches for all kinds of medical uses. Earlier this month, CardiacSense received FDA clearance for its CSF-3 watch for measuring a handful of vital signs.
Last month, the FDA cleared the ChroniSense Medical Polso remote patient monitoring system. That watch monitors blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), pulse rate and respiration rate.
Companies that develop smartwatches for consumers also entered the healthcare realm with their devices. Apple received FDA clearance for irregular heart rhythm detection and notification on its watch in November 2021. However, it remains in a patent spat with Masimo over smartwatch IP. Fitbit garnered FDA clearance for AFib detection in April 2022.
Then, companies like iRhythm — much like CardiacSense — aim to supplant the traditional Holter monitor. iRhythm’s ZioXT is worn on the chest. However, it also has the Zio Watch under development. Zio Watch is a sensor-based wearable for non-invasive, clinical-grade, long-term continuous monitoring for AFib.