Clothing to Remotely Connect to Care
Healthcare monitoring through high-tech textiles.
Project Overview
Updated March 31, 2023.
The Problem
One of the critical steps taken to prepare for and manage the COVID-19 pandemic was reducing the number of non-critical patients in hospitals.
For example, hospital patients recovering from operations were discharged earlier than usual and asked to continue the recovery process at home. In other cases, operations and procedures were cancelled. As a result, these patients are managing their health conditions at home with the added challenges of physical distancing and self-isolation.
Virtual medicine using telephone or video conferencing have been used, but they rely on self-reporting by the patient. Internet-based solutions may also exclude at-risk citizens, such as cognitively or physically impaired individuals.
How We Are Solving It
The Clothing to Remotely Connect to Care project aims to support the virtual and remote care of patients in the community by incorporating wearable technology. Led by Myant, the project team also includes the University Health Network and KITE (the research arm of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute).
Textile-based sensors integrated into garments such as underwear, bras, tank tops and chest bands can continuously and ambiently capture data such as temperature, heart and lung health, breathing and movement. Leveraging Myant’s cloud-based platform, doctors and other health professionals can assess real-time and historic biometric data in conjunction with the patient’s existing health information to make more informed clinical decisions.
Machine learning algorithms will monitor biometric data, flagging deviations from a patient’s normal readings, which could require a physician’s attention. This will help enhance virtual care for at-risk populations, especially the elderly who live alone and those in remote communities with limited access to specialized care. The result is more people connected to care at a time where travelling to a clinic or hospital may pose risks.
Beyond the COVID-19 crisis, the technology could be covered by employer extended healthcare plans, allowing increased monitoring for employees with heart conditions.
The Result
- The distribution and deployment of the first smart textile tele-monitoring system in the remote northern city of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Canada, with over 500 users recruited. The learnings from this effort helped focus our product offering, particularly around the efficacy of the system through focus group cohorts, verifying and validating the product paradigms.
- The initiation of a clinical study with PACE Cardiology Clinic of Newmarket, Ontario to quantify the performance of Myant’s Skiin family of garments (underwear, chest band, tank top, and bra) in their ability to support and monitor cardiac patients. The study titled “Non-Invasive Monitoring of Arrhythmias Electrocardiogram (ECG) using Textile Sensors”, recorded the ECG of patients for 20 minutes using a clinical ECG device, as well as the Skiin system. This comparison validated the accuracy and performance of Skiin against a licensed medical device.
Project Lead
Project Partners
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"The Myant team wanted to thank the Digital Technology Supercluster team for their support. The project allowed us to confirm the efficacy and feasibility of our Skiin Underwear smart textile system for remote cardiac monitoring. This new possibility will allow patients to comfortably monitor their cardiac biometrics and for physicians to readily access to this data for clinical evaluations."
Myant