Innovative device to remotely monitor student-athletes amid the pandemic – University of Miami

With student-athletes returning to campus, the University is adding tele-vigilance to its multifaceted approach for containing the coronavirus.

As the father of a young daughter with frequent ear infections, Dedi Gilad spent too many hours in a clinic waiting to see the childs doctor, fretting about their time away from school and work, and dreaming of a better way to diagnose and treat common ailments.

Now the little device that Gilad, the co-founder of Tyto Care, developed to provide on-demand medical exams is poised to deliver on a big promise to University of Miami student-athletes who are returning to campus amid the pandemic. Should they exhibit even minor symptoms of the highly contagious coronavirus that shut down South Florida in mid-March, or come in contact with anyone who has tested positive, theyll have almost instant access to a doctor who can examine and monitor them very closelybut from afarwith one of Tyto Cares TytoHome kits.

Thanks to the generosity of two donors and the vision of Dr. Roy E. Weiss, the chair of the Miller School of Medicines Department of Medicine, 300 of the palm-sized instruments are in the hands of the Athletics Department, which is test-piloting the instruments use for the University at large. They will enable UHealth providers to remotely peer down a patients throat, inspect their eardrums, listen to their lungs and heart, take their temperature, and even measure the oxygen levels in their blood.

We have long been proponents of investing in, developing, and using new tools for telehealth, said President Julio Frenk. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated innovation in this space and Dedi Gilads Tyto Care home kits add enormous valuegiving us the ability to follow up with members of the University community who are in isolation after testing positive or having been exposed to the virus.

Blake James, director of athletics, said the Universitys nearly 400 student-athletes and 200 trainers and other department staff members are an ideal control group for testing the telehealth devices for all students, faculty, and staff returning in the fall.

From a lay persons view, I see this awesome technology as the way medicine is going in the future, and Im excited that we get to incorporate it into our plan for our kids right now, James said. Its a great opportunity for us to be able to give our athletes and their families greater peace of mind while giving our medical experts a real-life test of how it will work and what the challenges may be.

Providing peace of mind from three different perspectivesthe students, their families, and UHealth caregiversis what Weiss had in mind when he suggested the University become the first to integrate Tytos into its multifaceted plan for the resumption of on-campus classes. As he noted, students and their parents need to know that expert medical care is readily and continuously available if needed. And, caregivers need to know that those who arent sick enough for hospitalization arent deteriorating in isolation or infecting others when they are monitored.

Universities across the nation are focused on the three Tstesting, tracking, and tracingwhich we all must do to safely return students to our campuses, Weiss said. But were adding what I call the fourth Ttele-vigilance, which will allow us to make sure our student body is healthy and stays healthy.

For now, Tyto devices, named for the genus of barn owls that, like most owls, have spectacular long-distance vision, will be issued on an as-needed basis to student-athletes, athletics staffers, or others involved in their activities who meet one of four conditions, but dont need hospitalization. The conditions are those who test positive for COVID-19; develop a sore throat, fever, or other symptoms suggestive of the virus; have diabetes, asthma, or other underlying medical conditions that put them at significant risk for the disease; or have been exposed to individuals who have tested positive, as well as those who need to be monitored or quarantined because of their travels.

Student-athletes and staff who receive the devices will be quarantined and trained to perform their own daily health exams and upload the digital results via Tytos app to their UHealth electronic medical record, which will be reviewed daily by their team doctor or other health professionals. Alternatively, health care providers can connect to the isolated patients virtually and conduct the exam themselves, seeing the results in real time.

Its an extremely disruptive technology. I wish I had thought of it, said Luis Feigenbaum, the Universitys senior associate athletics director for performance, health and wellness. The typical workflow of checking up on our athletes or staff would require them to come to campus. So, if we can mitigate the risk to them and to others by limiting the amount of time outside of quarantine and isolation, that would be a tremendous win for everyone.

Originally developed and marketed in Israel by Gilad and Tyto Care co-founder Ofer Tzadik to deliver on-demand medical exams and diagnoses to families anywhere and anytime, the FDA-cleared devices entered the U.S. market in 2017. Two years later, TIME magazine included TytoHomes on its annual list of the worlds best inventions. Then in February, when Israels Sheba Medical Center was searching for a safe way for its staff to monitor a dozen Israelis who were returned to their homeland from the virus-stricken cruise ship Diamond Princess, Tyto Care found a vital, new calling.

Tyto Care provided the easy-to-use home kits that enabled the isolated passengers to share their daily health status with Sheba physicians, ensuring that none of the infected passengers took a turn for the worse or spread the disease while they improved. Now, most of Israels hospitals rely on Tyto devices to remotely examine quarantined patients in hospitals and isolated patients at home.

As a dad of two, I can relate to all of the struggles parents face when it comes to their kids' health, especially in the wake of COVID-19, said Gilad.As the world grapples with how to re-open safely, giving peopleespecially students returning to college campusesunprecedented access to medical care is of utmost importance in mitigating the spread.

But long before anyone heard of the novel coronavirus that originated in China at the end of 2019, Israelis largest health system began introducing TytoHome kits to families with children who, like Galids daughter, suffered from chronic earaches or other common acute ailments. Clalits incentive was a 2016 clinical study that showed Tyto Cares easy-to-use devices minimized emergency room and clinic visits, improved access to care, and eased reservations about using telehealth.

And that change in attitude, Weiss said, is already emerging as one of the pandemics few silver linings.

The world is changing and medicine B.C.before COVIDand medicine P.C.post COVIDwill never be the same, Weiss said. The ease of being able to see your doctor with telemedicine is here to stay. Theres no question about that. Patients and doctors are accepting this movement, and COVID is the enzyme that catalyzed it. That will be one of the positives of our experience with COVIDto embrace and enhance telemedicine.

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Innovative device to remotely monitor student-athletes amid the pandemic - University of Miami

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