Digital-health

An original place to place sensors to detect vital parameters.

Heart Health Intelligence has secured $2.2 million in funding to develop its technological toilet cover. The investment was provided by Bemis Manufacturing Company, with the participation of LaunchNY, RIT Venture Fund, Tech Coast Angels, Excell Partners and Impact Capital of New York. Bemis Manufacturing will cooperate with the startup to produce the toilet seats.

The Rochester startup, based in New York, is focused on the development of the Heart Seat, a toilet seat with a cardiovascular monitoring system. Patients can monitor heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, ECG and blood oxygenation when they sit on it.

The device, which can transmit data to people’s families, carers and health workers, is still under development. However, last year the company co-operated with the University of Rochester Medical to test the technology. The results of this study were published in JMIR and found that, over a period of eight weeks, the system demonstrated good accuracy against the gold standard of parameter measurement.

The new funds will be used to obtain FDA certification and to organize the marketing of the product.