Bakersfield firm launches software for remotely monitoring COVID-19 cases
A Bakersfield-based medical software company has responded
quickly to the coronavirus pandemic with its launch Tuesday of a cloud-based
computer platform designed to help physicians remotely monitor COVID-19
patients.
Sargas Pharmaceutical Adherence and Compliance
International's system uses Bluetooth-connected wireless medical devices — or,
if that's not available, manual data entry — to record patients' temperature,
oxygen saturation, blood pressure, pulse and weight. That information is then
shared with caregivers over a secure internet connection.
CEO Gitesh "Git" Patel, who has worked closely with
Bakersfield's Comprehensive Blood & Cancer Center for many years, said his
roughly 30-employee company has worked in the field of remote patient
monitoring for several years. It now provides non-COVID-19 illness management
services to hundreds of doctors and some 15,000 patients around the country.
When the coronavirus pandemic arose, the company looked at
what medical technology capabilities physicians needed in order to keep an eye
on COVID-19 patients' symptoms so they could determine whether or at what point
hospitalization was necessary.
Incorporating information on oxygen (O2) saturation and
temperature became particularly important for monitoring COVID-19 patients, he
said.
"Since our platform already had O2 built and used by
some of our existing patients, we added the temperature feature over the
weekend," he said Tuesday.
Sargas charges doctors to use its chronic
care management and patient monitoring software. The doctors then bill
their services to the federal Medicare program, which early last year began
accepting charges for remote
patient monitoring services.
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