Kevin Smith has been appointed Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Sensium Healthcare, a global provider in wireless monitoring of vital signs. As CCO based in Boston, MA, Mr. Smith will be responsible for the development and execution of Sensium’s global commercial strategy. He will also directly oversee partnering with US hospitals and medical universities, to build clinical evidence for SensiumVitals, the first early warning detection device to be introduced by Sensium Healthcare to US hospitals, medical schools and medical institutions.
Prior to joining Sensium Healthcare, Mr. Smith was a Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Teleflex Medical, which manufactures and sells Class II and Class III devices into the Cath Lab and CVOR environments including IABP, BTK Angioplasty, Right Heart & Access. He spent a total of 19 years in the medical device industry working on developing and accelerating domestic and international sales and product launches for numerous medical companies.
SensiumVitals, the company’s flagship product, is a revolutionary new wireless early warning system in an FDA-approved, light-weight, disposable patch designed to improve patient outcomes and shorten hospital stays. The system, developed in the UK and introduced to the US market, enables early intervention by continuously and accurately monitoring vital signs of heart rate, respiration rate and axillary temperature every two minutes and alerting the nursing staff when pre-set thresholds are exceeded.
The system is based on a disposable, single-use, wearable patch that monitors patients outside of high acuity areas. By notifying clinicians of changes in patients’ vital signs, SensiumVitals brings the nurse to the deteriorating patient, allowing intervention before the condition worsens, potentially resulting in improved patient outcomes, shorter hospital stays, and lower treatment costs. It is currently in trials in two leading UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals at St. James’s University Hospital in Leeds and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
According to Kevin Smith, “The real value of the SensiumVitals device is that the vital signs of in-hospital patients can be tracked and monitored unobtrusively and continuously in real time when wearing the patch. A preliminary study of SensiumVitals monitored patients reported that hospital stays were shortened with additional cost savings on overall treatment. Early testing indicates that the SensiumVitals patch has been effective as an early warning system for detecting Sepsis at the onset, a disease responsible for half of all hospital deaths.”
SensiumVitals communicates the patient measurements, which are interpreted by algorithms to avoid false alerts, for up to five days without the need for re-charging. The system utilizes a very low power radio to transmit the patient’s information, instead of using much more power hungry Wi-Fi or Bluetooth solutions.
The SensiumVitals patch is easily integrated with existing hospital technology via a router-like “bridge” to the hospital IT system that reports to a nurses’ station, central monitoring station or any point-of-care Microsoft-based Web-enabled device, including hand-held devices for instant communications. The patch is discarded when the patient is discharged, removing the need for cleaning and sterilization to prevent cross-contamination.
