Sense4Baby foetal monitor featured in Apple Watch keynote
At Apple's product demonstration event in San Francisco, AirStrip Technologies had its Sense4Baby foetal monitor presented on stage by Apple CEO, Tim Cook. The device can monitor foetuses from an Apple Watch. The mobile health developer's site crashed within seconds after the presentation due to interest, and the company reported receiving nearly 20 product inquiries from "large providers" within three hours of the event. According to Forbes, Apple is "closer" to "changing the game" in the healthcare market with this announcement, which could allow it to push fully into patient care and remote monitoring.&nbsp;
Immediately following Apple CEO Tim Cook’s presentation to kick off a special event in San Francisco launching new Apple products, mobile healthcare developer AirStrip Technologies demonstrated a new Apple Watch app accompanying its Sense4Baby fetal monitor. The buzz was overwhelming.

“Our website was crashed within seconds,” AirStrip CEO Alan Portela told MedCity News on Wednesday. “I have to confess, I didn’t know we were going to be right after Tim Cook.”

Portela reported receiving product inquiries from close to 20 “large providers” within three hours of the event, which saw AirStrip co-founder Dr. Cameron Powell show live data from Sense4Baby on an Apple Watch. “The wave that [the appearance] created is really incredible,” Portela said.

In his demo, Powell noted that healthcare providers already have monitored more than 3.5 million high-risk pregnancies with Sense4Baby, which San Antonio-based AirStrip acquired from the Gary and Mary West Health Institute a year and a half ago. The app allows doctors and nurses to monitor pregnant patients from home, incorporating laboratory and other patient data, and communicate securely with those patients.

“AirStrip plus Apple Watch together will redefine how messaging and communication happen in healthcare,” Powell said. “What is so great is I can take action on what I see. Here, I can send a HIPAA-compliant, secure message to a member of the patient’s care team.”

According to Portela, this “brings a whole new level of care coordination into the home.”

Another highlight of the Apple special event was the unveiling of the new iPad Pro, which will feature a 12.9-inch screen and a detachable keyboard, comparable to Microsoft’s Surface tablets. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, showed off the advanced graphics capabilities of the forthcoming iPad Pro with a high-resolution anatomy app from digital publisher 3D4Medical.

Photo: Twitter user spyder_trap