With patented heart spectrum blood pressure monitoring technologies as its core, OSTAR Meditech Corp. has successfully developed a "Smart Cloud Vital Sign Monitoring System", which is adopted by local hospitals and shows significant nursing efficiency improvement. Next, the company will further cooperate with fitness equipment makers to develop wearables, in an effort to drive the widespread use of smart medical devices.
Unique Heart Spectrum Monitoring Technology
"Preventing myocardial infarction is the ultimate goal of our company", Dr. Steven Chang, CTO of OSTAR, said. Chang was a military technology expert before, but decides to apply hi-tech in developing medical instruments to save more lives.
He explained that the company's patented heart spectrum monitoring technology is to directly calculate the heart blood vessel pressure change (not statistics model), and get the important information of the systolic pressure, the diastolic pressure, the pulse, and so on. Also, it can calculate the patient's heart noise using digital signal processor to analyze the frequency of heart zone, the valve zone, and cardiovascular zone.
"Traditional sphygmomanometer can't find out the changes of blood pressure and heart spectrum clearly. With our product, users can monitor the frequency changes of hearts, in a way to take actions to prevent myocardial infarction or hear attack from taking place", he emphasized.
Another unique feature of OSTAR's blood pressure monitor is its self-calibration function. By using special algorithm, the product can guarantees its accuracy throughout its lifecycle, so that users can make measurements at home with a peace of mind.
With these unique patented technologies, OSTAR's heart spectrum blood pressure monitors have been accepted by major hospitals in Taiwan and have won many awards in the past years, including National Business Award, International Medical Care Innovation Award, Good Products Designs Prize, Innovation Research Prize, and the latest Invention Award in Japan.
Smart Vital Sign Monitor System
Population aging and the shortage of nursing staff are two of major challenges for health institutes all over the world. Aiming to solve this problem, OSTAR has developed a cloud vital sing monitor system, A3, to help improve nursing efficiency.
"A3 is an integrated and automated monitor system for nursing staff", Chang introduced. "With embedded heart spectrum blood pressure monitoring card, we designed A3 by adding more other functions, including wireless transmission, barcode scanner, database system, as well as vital signs measurement and recording capabilities for blood pressure, blood oxygen, body temperature, respiration rate, uric glucose, blood glucose, and pain degree."
"Nurses can use this system to scan patent's barcode first, and then take vital signs measurement. All the data will be transmitted to the hospital's database or cloud system automatically."
A3 has been adopted by Taipei Medical University Hospital for one year, and it is proved that, by eliminating the manual labor, the nursing data collection efficiency is improved by more than 30%. Meanwhile, it can help improve data accuracy for reliable patient care and reduce hospital expense by creating a paperless environment.
In order to make sure that all the data is transferred accurately, OSTAR has developed a patent of "confirmed transmission of data" to provide 100% reliability of the system.
A3 is not only a perfect solution for smart wards, but also is suitable to be used in long-term healthcare centers to address the issues of care quality and staff shortage.
The Future Trend of Smart Medical
Chang claimed that OSTAR is the first and the only company that develops a smart monitor system like this.
"With our core heart spectrum blood pressure technology, we integrate other key components to make it a system that can really solve nursing staff's problems, and is also featured with friendly user interface", he said.
With years of R&D experiences, Chang emphasized that the company has in-house design and development capabilities, and has secured 27 patents for the smart system.
"I am sure that we are at the forefront of the market, and has successfully built up a patent barrier to against competitions", Chang said. "It's very clear that adopting smart monitoring systems to take proactive measures for patient care and improve healthcare quality will be the trend in the future. We are well positioned to provide right products to meet these market requirements.
For some vital signs measurements, such as blood glucose and body temperature that OSTAR is not specialized in, the company chose to cooperate with other local companies.
Chang believes that it's now a inflection point for the healthcare industry to adopting more ICT technologies, and medical instruments will be increasingly penetrated into household and consumer markets in the end.
"As a powerhouse in global ICT industry, Taiwan has many medical instrument makers specializing in different areas. It's a great opportunity for us to work together to develop a highly differentiated smart system to expand global market through mutual cooperation", he said.
Grasp Market Opportunities with Rich Portfolios
OSTAR's A3 system has been adopted by Show Chwan Hospital and Taipei Medical University Hospital in Taiwan. As for overseas market, "There are 6~7 hospitals are now in test stage currently. I am very optimistic that we will be able to expand the market to as many as 100 hospitals in 4 years", Chang indicated.
In addition to heart spectrum blood pressure monitor and A3 smart system, OSTAR has also expanded its product portfolios to other related applications, such as telemedicine system, monitor system for discharged patients, and so on.
Meanwhile, OSTAR has teamed up with Prohealthcare Pharmacy and Vision Clinic to implement medical cloud systems, as well as work with leading IT brand, Acer, to build corporate cloud of medical systems.
Wearable devices will be another focus for OSTAR. At present, the company is working with Dyaco International to develop a sports band that can transmit blood oxygen and blood pressure data to treadmills. "Sports bands are popular gadgets recently. But, without useful medical information, these devices will only be toys", Chang said.
"At present, most sports bands can only show heart rate, and our product will take the lead to show more important information such as blood oxygen and blood pressure, to make it more valuable."
Chang is keen about OSTAR's future development, since he believes that the growth momentum of health industry and related applications will be huge in the future.
Dr. Steven Chang, CTO of OSTAR
DIGITIMES' editorial team was not involved in the creation or production of this content. Companies looking to contribute commercial news or press releases are welcome to contact us.
