A Waterloo Region tech company has been awarded $1.75 million from Canada’s advanced manufacturing supercluster to develop a system to remotely monitor patients, including those with COVID-19, after they are sent home from hospital.
Cloud DX, based in Kitchener, will use the funds to manufacture Pulsewave 2.0, a wrist cuff that records and analyzes a patient’s pulse, breathing rate, heart rate and blood pressure. The system can then notify doctors and nurses of any changes in the patient’s vital signs or symptoms.
While today’s supercluster funding announcement dealt specifically with companies working on COVID-19 solutions, Cloud DX says its device enables hospitals to send non-acute patients home sooner, not just those suffering from COVID-19. As such, it can contribute to reducing “hallway medicine” due to hospital overcrowding, which was identified as a problem in Ontario well before the coronavirus pandemic struck earlier this year.
“Once production begins, Pulsewave 2.0 will be one of the only Health Canada-authorized medical devices that simultaneously gathers heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure remotely from patients at home,” said Robert Kaul, CEO of Cloud DX. “Our solution is one key to helping Canadian healthcare providers monitor thousands of COVID-19 presumptive patients day after day, and to facilitating COVID-19 recovery by helping doctors to quickly identify and focus on those patients whose conditions have worsened.”
The $1.75 million, which will fund 50 per cent of the development of Pulsewave 2.0, comes from Next Generation Manufacturing Canada, or NGen, one of five superclusters established in a $950-million federal government initiative unveiled in 2017. The funds for Cloud DX are part of $6 million in COVID-related funding allocated to three Canadian companies today.
NGen funding will help speed up regulatory approval and help Cloud DX begin manufacturing the new vital sign monitors at scale, in Canada. The company expects to create up to 10 new full-time jobs in Waterloo Region over the 12-month span of the project.
“During an unprecedented and challenging time, Canada’s advanced manufacturing companies have really stepped up to the plate and developed innovative solutions that will save lives and improve healthcare,” said Jayson Myers, CEO of NGen. “Every single one of these new manufacturing technologies will not only meet the immediate demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also build world-leading capabilities in Canadian manufacturing innovation that will support the future well-being and economic prosperity of Canadians as we move forward.”
This is the second supercluster announcement involving Cloud DX this month. On June 4 the company joined a project led by the digital technology supercluster based in British Columbia.
Pulsewave 2.0 will be the next iteration of Cloud DX’s blood pressure monitoring system.
