# A Medical-Grade Smart-Phone Based Monitoring System (Supplement)

> **NIH NIH R21** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2020 · $207,196

## Abstract

Project Summary
 As the average age of the US population increases and chronic conditions are becoming more
prevalent, there is a need to improve the effectiveness of disease prevention, to improve access to healthcare,
and to sustain healthy independent living. At the same time, there is an increased availability of new
technologies and an ever-improving health information technology infrastructure with >90% of American adults
owning a cell phone and 55% having a Smart-Phone. Evolution of these wireless devices is expected to mark
a new era in medicine and a transition from population-level health care to individualized medicine, that
promises to improve patient-provider communication, adherence to treatment and self-management of chronic
diseases in under-served populations.
 At the same time, despite the availability of a multitude of evidence-based therapies for the treatment of
heart failure (HF), a chronic disease, the burden of HF on the US population remains unacceptably high, with
an estimated 1 million admissions per year, the majority of which involve the elderly. Moreover, HF
readmission rates, are a marker of worse prognosis and represent a significant healthcare expenditure and
performance measure for payers, while efforts to reduce the burden of re-hospitalization using conventional
markers have been largely ineffective.
 Therefore, new, low-cost, easy-to-deploy technologies are needed to meet the clinical need for long-
term (>1-2 days) monitoring of the ambulatory patients, especially those that do not have easy access to
Hospital-based health-care. The central goal of this Emergency Supplement is to investigate the hypothesis
that one may develop methods for estimating the beat-to-beat blood pressure variability and to develop a
Smartphone app that provides medical grade 12 lead ECG signals, and estimates the blood pressure, SpO2,
respiration rate, tidal volume, minute ventilation, level of ischemia and arrhythmia susceptibility, using the on-
board computing power of a Smart-Phone, without the need of additional hardware.
 To achieve the aims of this proposal we will (i) develop and validate a method for estimating the beat-
to-beat blood pressure variability; (ii) develop a Smartphone app that provides medical grade 12 lead ECG
signals, and estimates the blood pressure, SpO2, respiration rate, tidal volume, minute ventilation, level of
ischemia and arrhythmia susceptibility. Success of this proposal will help develop a novel patient-based
diagnostic device, that will improve ambulatory patient monitoring (especially those that live in under-served
areas), without the need of specialized hardware.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10144529
- **Project number:** 3R21EB026164-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** ANTONIS A ARMOUNDAS
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $207,196
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-08-21 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10144529

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10144529, A Medical-Grade Smart-Phone Based Monitoring System (Supplement) (3R21EB026164-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10144529. Licensed CC0.

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