Courtesy / Senscio Systems
Seen here is a screen shot of the Ibis tablet showing monitoring data for COVID-19.
Updated: April 30, 2020
Growing Maine medical device provider pivots to COVID-19 fight
Courtesy / Senscio Systems
Senscio Systems CEO Piali De expects use of the company’s telehealth system to expand significantly in the next few years, driven in the immediate future by COVID-19.
A medical device maker with a growing Maine presence is expanding its at-home health-monitoring product to screen individuals at most risk of COVID-19.
Senscio Systems, which is based in Boxborough, Mass., has operated in Maine for five years and last month opened an operations center in Scarborough. The majority of its customers in Maine, CEO Piali De told Mainebiz.
It offers a software program, Ibis Health Management Solution, that’s designed to be part of a home-based telehealth management system for monitoring an individual's risk of certain diseases by tracking vital signs. With more patients relegated to telehealth systems they can use from home, demand is growing.
Earlier this week, the company announced plans to expand its presence in Maine because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And over the next three years, the company projects it will add more than 100 health care jobs across the state.
Ibis provides at-home self-management for people living with complex chronic conditions. The program combines health care technology and artificial intelligence, coupled with coaching and integrated health management services. It notifies the patient’s care providers to consider interventions based on self-assessment data.
Before the pandemic, the system’s primary deployment was to patients suffering from conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an inflammatory lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe, said De.
Patients with some chronic underlying conditions are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19, so the device’s monitoring protocols have been expanded to include the virus, she explained.
Maine partners
Senscio has been operating in Maine for five years, De said.
“Maine was the first place where the product was deployed,” she said.
The company maintains its research and development lab in Massachusetts. On April 15, she said, it opened an operations center in Scarborough, where it leases space at the Southern Maine Agency on Aging facility on U.S. Route 1.
“We’ve been partners with them four or five years and we serve a lot of their clients, so when it came time to find a home in Maine it made sense to be with one of our key partners in Maine,” De said.
Senscio was founded in 2010 by De and her husband Hugh Stoddart. De’s background is in artificial intelligence and Stoddart’s is in health care. The first years were spent writing code, she said. Today, the company employs about two dozen technicians, clinicians and others in operations and administration, with seven in Maine.
The Ibis program has been used by more than 650 customers, at least two-thirds of them in Maine, said De. Senscio’s Maine-based partners include the Southern Maine Agency on Aging, Avesta Housing, Auburn Housing Authority, Eastern Area Agency on Aging, South Portland Housing Authority, Redzone, Westbrook Housing and St. Joseph Healthcare, according to the company’s website.
Senscio viewed Maine as a viable market for its telehealth system because of the state’s aging and rural demographics, De said.
“Maine became a strategic focus for us,” she said.
Today, the company has customers throughout Maine.
Patients who enroll in the Ibis program receive a touch-screen device that reminds them to take their medications and monitor their vital signs, as well as a thermometer and pulse oximeter for measuring oxygen in the blood, according to the company’s website.
The information is processed in real time by artificial intelligence. The program includes contact with a patient advocate and a telehealth doctor who responds to health changes and provides consultation with the patient’s primary care physician or other providers.
It was a simple shift to expand the program and include monitoring protocols for COVID-19 symptoms such as coughing and oxygen saturation, said De.
“The artificial intelligence will make a determination whether their health is holding steady or deteriorating in a direction that suggest there’s COVID-19 infection,” she explained.
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Anonymous
April 30, 2020
Senscio has a compelling AI-based remote patient monitoring system the has broad applications in a socially distanced tele health world. Redzone Wireless has been grateful for the opportunity to provide connectivity services for Senscio clients across Maine.
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