First of its kind initiative in India bringing wearable technology for post-surgery care. Manipal Hospitals, the second-largest healthcare services provider in India, today announced a strategic partnership with ConnectedLife built with Google Cloud to use Fitbit's wearable technology with ConnectedLife's virtual platform to monitor patient progress and empower "Continuity of Care Post-High-Risk Surgeries". Through this virtual platform, the clinical teams at Manipal Hospitals will gain a holistic view of the patient post-discharge, tailor their intervention precisely to the patient's needs, and monitor them in their journey towards a healthy post-surgery recovery. This digital initiative aims to use wearable technology to stay connected with patients post surgeries like total knee replacement, angioplasty, cardiac bypass surgery, and other high-risk surgeries. The advanced digital solution can remotely capture heart rate, oxygen saturation level, and activity metrics (sleep quality, steps taken, and pain score) both pre-and and post-operatively. The technology optimizes patient care via triggering reminders to take medications or participate in physiotherapy and triggering warnings if there are significant deviations outside normal physiological parameters. Early data indicates patients on the programme have seen improved adherence to medication and exercise schedule with associated improvements in physical activity. Within this programme we are able to give patients in post-operative care a better view of their activity, sleep and other health metrics that can help empower them in managing their day-to-day wellbeing. "This is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in the history of Manipal Hospitals and in the Indian healthcare eco-system. Today, we have an excellent opportunity to develop a cohesive program for the continuity of care after hospitalization. Through this partnership, we are expecting post-surgery care to become seamless, as wearable technology will help us monitor certain critical parameters of patients who have undergone total knee replacement surgery, angioplasty, cardiac bypass surgery, and other high-risk surgeries," said Dr Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals. "In the long run, it will help facilitate Manipal Hospitals to determine if the post-operative data collected from the ConnectedLife with Fitbit dashboard match with functional outcomes and improved patient satisfaction post-surgery. This data will allow us to understand and develop new methods in cost-effectiveness, compliance, comfort, and ease of use, all while giving us accurate data on the vitals," said Mr. Dilip Jose, MD & CEO, Manipal Hospitals. "The intuitive, user-centric platform will help every person, from at-risk patients to chronic sufferers. We will be able to better understand their condition and then collaborate with care teams to achieve better health outcomes. Through its patient-centric platform, we will be able to replace lengthy manual processes with 24/7 insight-based care and monitoring, and thus enabling recovery outside of hospitals," Mr Jose added. Alok Shankar, Country Manager for Fitbit India said, "We continue to work with ConnectedLife to facilitate engagement with strategic partners like Manipal Hospitals to develop and implement solutions that play a key role in building the digital health ecosystem in India. This programme gives people a better view of their health metrics, which can help empower them to better manage their recovery." "We are honoured to partner with Manipal Hospitals and Fitbit in bringing about a digital transformation within the Indian health eco-system to continuity of care post-high-risk surgeries. For ConnectedLife this is an incredible opportunity to deliver at scale and further advance the application of easy-to-use smartphone and wearable technology, and novel data analytics and AI, and population health management tools. With our trusted, secure and scalable enterprise infrastructure, ConnectedLife will deploy new features and capabilities based on patient and clinician feedback every two to four weeks, and maintain the strictest accountability for data acquisition, privacy and protection," said Mr. Daryl Arnold, Founder & CEO, ConnectedLife. SOURCE: Manipal Hospitals