4 min reading time

Argentinian cardiologist Rafael Diaz is alarmed.

He says nearly 50% of us have blood pressure (BP) readings over 140/90 mmHg (hypertension).

40% with hypertension don’t know it.

And only 15% who know they have it, treat it.

He writes, “Hypertension was responsible for 9,500,000 deaths (15% of all worldwide deaths) in 2012 and hypertension is highly responsible for strokes and myocardial infarctions.”

Next week Rafael will present a program to 250 thought leaders in Rosario, Argentina (Population: 1.2 million).

The program outline:

• Read blood pressure in public places and invite those with high BP to the program.

• Have a control group watched by nurses and medical students, overseen by doctors.

• Use validated automatic BP devices that upload data, to minimize human error.

• Use generic drugs with a validated algorithm to maximize patient control and adherence.

• Use smartphones, apps, or text messages to interact frequently with patients.

Do you believe the program can work?
What ideas can Rafael bring to the meeting?

If the Rosario city pilot is successful, might your city be interested in a future trial?

And which devices (BP readers, apps, and wearables for the follow-up) should Rafael consider for the program?

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SORRY, OUT OF MY CONTROL

Sorry, as your group leader, some things are out of my control.

See and comment:

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Make it a great week.

Joe Hage
Medical Devices Group Leader

P.S. Arthur Brandwood’s webinar, “Big Changes for Medical Devices in Australia,” begins at 9 a.m. Pacific time today. Join us live or register to receive the slides and video replay at http://medgroup.biz/TGA-changes

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Andrew Kyle
Medical Device Expert; BOD, Startups; Cannabis Devices
The effective way to address this issue is just to manage your BP with medication. It works great! I was 145/95 and now am 115/75. Some of that was with exercise. When I talked about reducing salt and exercise, my doctor didn’t even pick up his pen as he wrote my first Rx. When I asked him why… he pointed to my belly and asked how much exercise I was doing…then said old habits die hard… best advise is “push away from the table a little hungry”… I ever got.

Clara Chung
clerk at Richmond Public Library
Should diet and exercises help?

Victoria Steblina
Mathematics Teacher
Our company DENAS MS has developed a specific device to lower blood pressure. It is class IIa device, dynamic TENS machine (SCENAR type). Very affordable and non-invasive.

DiaDENS-Cardio is a physiotherapeutic device that may aid in complex treatment of essential hypertension. It provides transcutaneous dynamic electroneurostimulation (DENS) of reflexogenous zones and acupuncture points that are associated with the system of vascular tone regulation.

Course treatment of DENS in association with complex treatment may allow to raise effectiveness of treatment of patients with essential hypertension by means of vegetative homeostasis correction, to stabilize psycho-emotional state and to lower medicamental load.

Operating frequencies: 9.2 Hz and “77 10” Hz. They combine during treatment. The apparatus is very easy to use. Just put it around the left wrist and press the button. The program of treatment is individual – it changes taking into account the impedance in the zone of the left wrist. DiaDENS-Cardio will do everything itself and will switch off automatically after completion of the program. Liquid crystal display will inform about the state of batteries and contact with skin.

[http://www.denas.net.au/DiaDENS_Cardio_Manual.pdf|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Edenas%2Enet%2Eau*3DiaDENS_Cardio_Manual%2Epdf/XaUz?_t=tracking_disc]

[http://www.denas.net.au/page/tga-registration#eccert|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Edenas%2Enet%2Eau*3page*3tga-registration%23eccert/-uru?_t=tracking_disc]

[http://www.old.denas.net.au/product-info.php?product-id77.html|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Eold%2Edenas%2Enet%2Eau*3product-info%2Ephp%3Fproduct-id77%2Ehtml/ENEb?_t=tracking_disc]

Joe Camaratta
General Manager at MedAvante-ProPhase
This is a great initiative! The American Heart Association / American Stroke Association is trying to “move the needle” – especially in minority communities (which have a higher incidence). They found it to be an educational problem and assembled some excellent materials available at:
[http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/High-Blood-Pressure-or-Hypertension_UCM_002020_SubHomePage.jsp|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Eheart%2Eorg*3HEARTORG*3Conditions*3HighBloodPressure*3High-Blood-Pressure-or-Hypertension_UCM_002020_SubHomePage%2Ejsp/esBU?_t=tracking_disc]

Thomas Bennett
Sr. Marketing Manager Lifecycle Solutions – Americas at Elekta
Lot of devices to chose from. Our business has learned that in addition to making it easy for individuals to digitally monitor things like BP, weight, glucose, sleep the information needs to be transmitted to clinical oversight as well as their own personal extended caregiver group (friends&family) to help ensure compliance by providing some good old fashion positive re-enforcement.

This can all be done using personal devices in a secure cloud environment. The biggest barrier has always been device and network availability. With that barrier quickly vanishing and users becoming more tech savvy a personalized program of education, monitoring and pro-active intervention is possible and has proven to show big financial impact in addition to improving community health.

Chuck Gerald
Realtor® Century 21 Vanguard
Here in South Carolina we can use all the help we can get. Much diabetes and hypertension.

I take medication to control BP with Generics since my Ins doesn’t like to pay for name brands.

I also feel sure my life style doesn’t help a bit.

One of my heroes didn’t believe in exercise and loved beer., Good ol’ Ben Franklin.

Ben probably died of a heart attack.

Douglas Hatran
Hydra Vascular LLC
I have a device that is specifically aimed at this exact problem and I am in the fundraising stage for series round A. If there are any investors who wish to participate, I would be willing to discuss.

Avigail Berg-Panitz
Wellness expert and TheSoundWell-Vibroacoustic therapy Owner,
vibroacoustic therapy may help
www.vibro-therapy.com
together with replacing life style bad habits with better habits(obesity, alcohol, stress. smoking)
please read my presentation – replacing bad habits with better habits:
[http://www.slideshare.net/AvigailBergPanitzMA/replace-bad-habit-with-better-habits|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Eslideshare%2Enet*3AvigailBergPanitzMA*3replace-bad-habit-with-better-habits/8Kts?_t=tracking_disc]

avigail

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
Thanks, Kerry. I see Valencia is based in California. I hope someone from the company can attend our 10x Medical Device Conference in San Diego ([http://medgroup.biz/About-10x|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3medgroup%2Ebiz*3About-10x/Fkju?_t=tracking_disc]).

Rafael’s first concern is how few with hypertension know they have it. Valencia’s solution seems to come in much later in the process.

Kerry Bradley
Sr. Director, Research at Nevro Corp
[http://valenciatechnologies.com/|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3valenciatechnologies%2Ecom*3/E06P?_t=tracking_disc]

Chaminda Goonetilleke
GP Trainee at Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust
How can I follow up on this project?

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
Thanks for your interest. Dr. Diaz is not very active on LinkedIn but his profile is at [https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=125177059|leo://plh/https%3A*3*3www%2Elinkedin%2Ecom*3profile*3view%3Fid%3D125177059/oz_p?_t=tracking_disc] and his email is rafadiaz@me.com.

I met Rafael at Daniel Kraft’s Exponential Medicine (from Singularity University) last week. Once again, the event was superlative. See [http://medgroup.biz/exponential|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3medgroup%2Ebiz*3exponential/t83m?_t=tracking_disc] and plan to attend in 2015.