Marani: Creating AI-based telehealth devices for pregnant women

Project: Building the perfect telehealth devices for pregnancy monitoring

Marani Health (formerly Odonata), which provides an AI-based maternal healthcare platform, partnered with HTEC to develop wearable telehealth devices that help clinicians monitor key parameters of the fetus and mother during pregnancy, labor, and delivery.

Challenge: Outdated prenatal care technologies

Approximately 830 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The US is among eight countries in the world where maternal mortality and morbidity are increasing despite $50 billion spent annually on prenatal and postpartum care.

All around the world, the prenatal care technology used in hospitals is outdated. Most monitoring devices are Doppler ultrasound technologies from the 1960s (CTG – cardiotocography), which are bulky and hard-wired, technically demanding for caregivers, require multiple patient visits, and don’t provide precise information that can be used for machine learning and fetal predictions.

Women with high-risk pregnancies, as well as those who live in rural and poverty-stricken areas, have the hardest time receiving the care they need. This, coupled with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, means that every visit to the OB/GYN presents a threat to future mothers and their babies.

Solution: Partnering for a complete, AI-based telehealth solution

Marani Health was founded by Ann Holder, a serial entrepreneur and an army veteran with a deep background in MedTech. Holder is driven by a mission to empower women by giving them access to vital information about their baby’s health during pregnancy.

Marani partnered with one of the best diagnostic cardiologists in the world,Dr. Paul Friedman, the Chairman of Cardiology at the Mayo Clinic. Dr. Friedman is an innovator in using machine learning to identify changes in ECG signals that may be detrimental to patients.

Looking to create a wearable ECG device, Marani discovered Orbital Research, the company behind the first FDA-approved dry electrode sensors, and HTEC— one of the first companies in the world to implement Orbital’s dry electrodes in an AI-powered telehealth solution.

As Marani and HTEC partnered to develop a complete telehealth solution, HTEC conducted thorough research on prenatal monitoring, exploring options for ECG and EMG analog frontends and other components that would enable the telemonitoring features in the product.

HTEC’s hardware-firmware team got to work on making the first version of a printed circuit board, while the machine learning team developed a fetal ECG extraction algorithm. During extensive testing, the first board provided excellent data collection results, proving that we were on the road to building a product that would have a lasting impact on mothers and their babies.

To date, HTEC’s team has delivered three different hardware versions, with the final one still in testing. At the same time, HTEC built software to enable a full telehealth experience. Connection to the telehealth device was established, backend services were set up for data collection and data processing, the fetal heart rate estimation algorithm is now successfully running on AWS, and screening results are being delivered via mobile phones.

HTEC has developed hardware, firmware, and software with algorithms for fetal ECG and uterine activity detection. Marani’s telehealth devices generate high-quality, AI-processed data via mobile phones in real-time, giving physicians key fetal and maternal parameters.

Success: Reducing maternal and fetal healthcare issues worldwide

After clinical trust is established and hospitals and the FDA endorse the Marani telehealth device, it will be able to reach a wider consumer market.

By making an AI-based maternal healthcare platform available, Marani and HTEC are allowing pregnant women to track their health and the health of their babies at home and easily share the data with their doctors. But even more than that, Marani is helping reduce global challenges such as predicting fetal distress, decreasing unnecessary C-sections, and improving fetal and maternal outcomes.

HTEC is proud to offer clinicians a non-invasive, cost-effective data solution to provide better care for their patients.

By making an AI-based maternal healthcare platform available, Marani and HTEC are allowing pregnant women to track their health and the health of their babies at home and easily share the data with their doctors. But even more than that, Marani is helping reduce global challenges such as predicting fetal distress, decreasing unnecessary C-sections, and improving fetal and maternal outcomes.

Want to learn more about how HTEC’s technology expertise can transform your business? Explore our Product Engineering and Healthcare & Medical Technology capabilities.