Creating a wireless health safety net

By Andrew Clark

The realm of wireless health care may be a relatively new world. But despite the novel nature of this technology, three engineers with U.Va. ties have quickly established themselves as experts in this rapidly developing field. They are taking their knowledge to the marketplace as technology entrepreneurs and contributing to a greater understanding of the field through academic research.

University of Virginia graduates David Mack (BME ’08) and Mark Hanson (EE, CpE ’03, EE ’09), along with current U.Va. electrical and computer engineering professor John Lach, have been at the forefront of the wireless boom, which has dramatically evolved over the past decade.

According to Hanson, the advancement and convergence of sensor, information processing and wireless technologies — which collectively promote the physical well-being of seniors and people living with disabilities — will play a crucial role in advancing health care over the next 20 years. He points out that by the year 2030, the over–60 population in the country will nearly double, accounting for more than 20 percent of the total population, numbers that he says reflect a growing need for innovative health care solutions.

Wireless sensors such as the ones being developed by U.Va. engineers can monitor everything from a patient’s sleep quality to an individual’s propensity for falls. These technologies will help close a vital data loop, allowing health care providers ready access to information on the daily health status of the patients they care for.

“There’s a real opportunity to help people age gracefully at home, and the time was right to offer this muchneeded service,” says Hanson.

Hanson is the co-founder of BeClose, a company that facilitates remote caregiving through the use of wireless health technology. BeClose, which began operating commercially earlier this year, aims to improve the quality of life for people seeking to live independently, and also to provide peace of mind to caregivers. Hanson’s six years of graduate work at the University, which dealt with clinical applications of wireless health sensing, helped to inspire and accelerate the research, development and commercialization of BeClose’s technology and products.

Given that the wireless health care field is in its nascent stage, creating a valuable product will be an evolutionary process, according to Hanson.

“We measure the efficacy of our technology by the impact it has on the families that use it every day,” says Hanson. “When we hear from customers that the service has positively changed their lives, it validates our approach and inspires us to continue evolving this emergent field.”

Like Hanson, David Mack is also involved on the commercial side of wireless technology. Mack is one of the founders of WellAWARE Systems Inc., a Virginia-based developer of wellness solutions for care providers utilizing wireless technology.

When Mack was a graduate student at U.Va., his studies centered around using technology to reduce health care costs. He was a member of U.Va.’s Medical Automation Research Center (MARC), where he focused on the sleep analysis component of the center’s eldercare technology suite.

During that time, he led clinical trials that validated the technology and participated in other field studies that started to build the case for commercialization of the suite as a whole. By the time he graduated, says Mack, he and a group of his colleagues in the center were ready to spin the new-found technology they had worked on into a company.

It took roughly eight years of research and pilot studies before WellAWARE was ready to launch commercially in early 2009. The company, the initial partners of which include the Volunteers of America and the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, offers innovative, affordable sensor technology placed throughout a resident’s living environment. Sensors passively identify changes in vital wellness indicators for seniors regardless of health status within the senior living care continuum. The information is presented through a Web-based software dashboard.

The company, which is dedicated to helping improve seniors’ quality of life, has undergone massive growth over the past two years in terms of employment and production.

“This technology is user friendly and easy to understand,” says Mack. “This is something that can be used in both urban and rural settings. We aren’t aiming to replace nurses. We are instead trying to aid caregivers so they can identify changes in wellness indicators sooner.”

Working through the trials and tribulations of wireless health care collaboration and commercialization at the university level is just as complicated as in the non-academic world. Just ask Lach, who taught Hanson when he was a graduate student. In his current work with wireless health care technology, Lach is engaged in a number of different collaborations, including partnerships with other professors and with researchers in different companies.

According to Lach, who focuses mainly on the design, usage, and application of miniature, body-worn motion sensors — which he says his students call “a full-body Wii” — there has been considerable evolution in this field of technology over the past few years.

“We’ve moved forward in a number of ways with wireless technology,” says Lach. “One of the things that’s happened is that the technology has become more energy efficient. Also, people are beginning to see the value in having interdisciplinary collaborations, such as medical experts working with engineering experts. There are significant challenges associated with forging such partnerships, but they are necessary to achieve the desired results, which are extremely rewarding in the end.”

Ultimately, the availability of wireless health care is crucial to improving care while reducing costs, especially given the imminent growth of the elderly population, says Lach.

“You can identify potential health problems before an incident occurs,” he says of sensor technology. “If you detect a degradation in someone’s walking stability, for example, you can immediately intervene before that person falls. When you put it all together, there is a tremendous need for an alternative like this in society today.”