MedTech Dive: ResMed (2020)

ResMed, Medtronic Embrace Remote Tech Amid COVID-19, Say it’s Here to Stay

The need to create safe physical distances between healthcare workers and COVID-19 patients is prompting medtechs to modify how their devices are used.

Spurred by regulatory flexibility from FDA, companies like GE Healthcare, Medtronic, and ResMed have developed and rapidly deployed remote programming and monitoring capabilities for their devices to help frontline providers reduce exposure to the deadly virus. Executives say many of the features are likely to become permanent.

GE Healthcare, partnering with Microsoft, last month introduced new remote monitoring software to provide hospitals with an enterprise-wide view of ventilated patients and to help identify those at risk of deterioration.

Jim Hollingshead, president of ResMed’s sleep business, told MedTech Dive it pivoted quickly to provide customers with remote monitoring of COVID-19 patients on ventilators.

Earlier this month, ResMed launched cloud-based remote monitoring software for ventilators and Lumis bilevel devices across Europe, giving clinicians access to respiratory information via computers or smartphones. Healthcare providers can also change some Lumis device settings remotely using the technology.

“It has allowed patients to be taken out of hospital beds” in countries such as Italy and Spain where ICUs were overwhelmed, and to be remotely monitored instead, Hollingshead said, also noting use in the U.S.