D-Heart Srl

D-Heart Srl

D-Heart Srl

D-Heart biomedical start-up was founded in 2015 thanks to the work of Nicolò Briante and Niccolò Maurizi, at the time two young students in the interdisciplinary environment of the Almo Collegio Borromeo of Pavia. Maurizi is a young doctor researcher in cardiology at the University of Florence. When he was sixteen, Maurizi was hit by a myocardial infarction. He decided to become a doctor and transform his problem into an opportunity. Thanks to the help and business expertise of his roommate, Briante, they created D-Heart, the first smartphone ECG device that combines the usability required by the patient and reliability of the ECG wanted by the doctor.

Company details

Via A. Cantore 8H/38 , Genova , 16149 Italy
View in map

Find locations served, office locations

Business Type:
Manufacturer
Industry Type:
Medical Equipment
Market Focus:
Internationally (various countries)
Year Founded:
2015

What limited the diffusion of homecare ECG devices up to now, was that to obtain reliable information for the doctors, cumbersome and unfriendly devices had to be used. Particularly, challenging cable uncoiling and the placement of electrodes in specific points were the main challenges. D-Heart, thanks to its innovative yet easy proprietary technology, solves both these problems: the user can wind up all the cables at once, or one at a time, and in any order, with intuitive positioning given by the cable exit direction from the device.

D-Heart app also shows the patient’s own chest with electrodes placed to aid further simplicity and reliability. The result is to have a device as reliable as the one present in your doctor’s office, always with you and ready to be simply used. The user can rely on the 24/7 tele-cardiology service to get results quickly from our trusted cardiologists. The device comes in a protective case with a wireless charging station. Everything from the device, app and packaging is designed and share the same design principle that reflects the D-Heart brand: simplicity meets reliability.

D-Heart has won 9 competitions in various fields, from healthcare innovation awards to Start up competitions. As a matter of fact, players such as Vodafone Foundation (Think for Social competition March 2016), BNP Paribas Cardiff (Best Solution for healthcare insurances 2016), Berkeley University (Global Social Venture Competition 2017), Italian Society of Cardiology (Best Abstract 2017) have awarded and recognized the value of D Heart’s innovation. D-Heart won the award Compasso d'Oro 2020 for best designed medical device.

Wearable devices like Fitbit® and Apple Watch® are affordable, widely available and extremely useful to track your level of physical activity. However, the main challenge to using wearable devices in healthcare is obtaining concrete medical conclusions from the data they collect, based on which doctors can plan relevant actions or reassure the patient.

In cardiology, multiple leads electrocardiogram (ECG) recording is the most simple, diffused and cost-effective way to analyse the heart and detect irregularities that might lead to serious health problems such as a stroke or heart attack. Up to this moment however, traditional ECG recorders required intrusive skin preparation, professional fitting in the doctor's office and could not be used by individuals with no medical background. D-Heart has designed the world's first ECG device that is as reliable as hospital ECGs but can be used anywhere by anyone with no medical background. Therefore, we are trying to re-invent the concept of medical device as something that enables the patient to acquire medical grade data anytime during his daily life.

In other words, we believe that with D-Heart we are shaping the ultimate expression of personalized medicine by creating a device that allows the patient to be responsible for his own care.

Moreover, having ubiquitous access to medical grade ECG data, D-Heart opens the possibility of acquiring an enormous amount of medically relevant data for a wide variety of individuals. Such massive amount of information, commonly referred to as ‘Big Data’, opens up lots of possibilities in the world of healthcare and cardiology by providing insights and information about detailed behaviours of the heart in different situations and environments.

If you ever wondered about your heart health, you probably came across an ECG monitor and perhaps wondered how ECG testing or monitoring works

WHAT IS AN ECG?

ECG is the abbreviation of the word electrocardiogram – a heart test that tracks the electrical activity of your heart and records it on a moving paper or shows it as a moving line on a screen. An ECG tracing is the most simple, diffuse and cost-effective way to analyse the heart and detect irregularities that might lead to serious health problems such as a stroke or heart attack. By looking at an ECG, a doctor can discern medically relevant information about the health and activity level of your heart muscle much better than you can tell from your heart rate alone performed by most wearable devices.

HOW DOES AN ECG DEVICE WORK?

To get an ECG trace, an ECG device is needed to record it. As the electrical signals move through the heart, the ECG monitor records the strength and the timing of these signals. ECGs are the required gold standard for diagnosis of arrhythmias and many cardiac abnormalities, and can even be used to see evidence of acute heart attacks and even events that have occurred in the past. As traditional ECG recorders and Holter monitors require intrusive skin preparation, professional fitting in the doctor's office, they cannot be used by individuals with no medical background.

D-Heart has designed the world's first ECG device that is as reliable as hospital ECGs and it can be used anywhere and by anyone with no medical background. It works with your iPhone or iPad via Bluetooth and it can be worn whenever you want to check your heart health or when you feel a strange symptom.

PREVENTION

The best way to prevent a heart problem is to regularly check your heart with reliable exams. The risk of heart attack commonly increases with age or due to familial predisposition. If a heart attack is acute, help often comes too late. It is therefore important to monitor your heart with regular checks. You can thereby detect early changes and treat them quickly. In the worst-case situation, you can even prevent heart damage. This protects your heart.

Furthermore, the fitter your heart muscle is, the better you can prevent cardiovascular disease. Frequent movement and exercise train and strengthen the heart. D-Heart is the perfect companion to perform a heart check before and after exercising. Gain reassurance knowing if your heart is okay.

DIAGNOSIS

You have intermittent or regular chest pain or discomfort from a racing heart? Your physician hasn't been able to give you a definitive diagnosis? The reason for this lies in the time delay from when your symptoms are present and when you see your physician at his office. It’s very hard for the doctor to establish a diagnosis when the symptoms have subsided. Your doctor can best determine the cause for your symptoms when a reliable ECG is recorded when symptoms are present. D-Heart is a hospital level ECG that can be used anytime and anywhere easily and can be the best solution for you.

Only with hospital level multiple lead ECG such as D-Heart you can accurately recognize complex arrhythmias or heart attacks.

MONITORING

If you have already received treatment for your heart problem and you want to monitor your condition D-Heart is the best solution for you.

As a matter of fact cardiologist recommend that Smartphone ECG monitor should be used to control patients after specific cardiac treatments, such as atrial fibrillation ablation. If symptoms recur, the feeling that the treatment was not totally successful often arises. You should record an ECG at the time your symptoms occur so that you can show it to your physician and therefore adjust accordingly your treatment.

Remember that only with a multiple lead ECG such as D-Heart (8 leads) recurrent complex arrhythmias can be recognized and even localized. Your cardiologist would always be a click away!