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Challenge: Outdated prenatal care technologies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All around the world, the prenatal care technology used in hospitals is outdated.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.
To provide the best experiences, we and our partners use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site and show (non-) personalized ads. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Click below to consent to the above or make granular choices. Your choices will be applied to this site only. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen.
Essential Cookies
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics Cookies
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing Cookies
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
HTEC and its digital partners use cookies for this site. Some are strictly necessary for the functioning of the site, but there are also optional ones, such as Preference, Statistics and Marketing.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics Cookies
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing Cookies
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.