Qardio Gives Medical Devices a Makeover

LAS VEGAS–What happens when consumer technologies and medicine meet? In the case of Qardio, an innovative company working to improve medical products, the result is a much better experience for the user, er, patient.

For Qardio, the user and patient are one in the same. That's because its devices, the QardioCore ECG reader (also called EKG) and QardioArm blood pressure monitor, were designed for use in the doctor's office and at home.

If you've ever seen a traditional ECG get-up, with its wires and sticky pads, the clean form of the QardioCore stands in stark contrast. The differences are more than skin deep: The ECG sensors used in medicine today require the patient to shave and prep his or her skin before applying the sensors with adhesive. Once the electrodes are attached, the patient also can't bathe until enough data has been collected, which could be one to two days.

The QardioCore, on the other hand, doesn't require any of the skin preparation, and it can be put on and removed as easily as a sports heart rate chest strap monitor. It simply wraps around the chest and snaps into place. The QardioCore also transmits data wirelessly to a mobile app and a secure cloud database, which can then be accessed by a physician faster and with greater ease than the traditional method. Remote monitoring typically saves patients time and money, too.

Qardio CEO Marco Peluso and CIO Rosario Iannella told me at CES here that they hope these devices are simple enough in design and ease of use that consumers will want to keep them in their homes for personal health monitoring, not just in a clinical setting. The QardioCore reads not just ECG, but also heart rate, heart rate variability, levels of physical activity, and variations in body temperature, precisely the kind of data self-quantifiers love to get their hands on.

For more coverage of fitness technologies, check out PCMag's preview of what to expect from health and fitness vendors at CES 2014.