EarlySense gets FDA clearance for an upgrade to its bedside monitoring device

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

EarlySense Inc., an Israeli company with US headquarters in Waltham, said Wednesday that it has received FDA clearance for an upgrade to its bedside system that monitors patients in hospitals and rehabilitation homes.

According to a company press release, its EarlySense system features “contact-free” respiratory, cardiac, and motion monitoring. Instead of wires hooked up to a patient, the system uses a sensor beneath the mattress of a patient’s bed to collect data. The system has been on the market for just over two years. And now, thanks to the upgrade of oximetry integration, new models will also be able to monitor oxygen saturation.

In a statement, EarlySense chief executive Avner Halperin said that his company’s device gives hospitals the “ability to monitor the oxygen saturation of a patient in addition to automatically, continuously and in a contact-free manner, monitor that same patient’s vital signs and movement.”

A recent study noted that one area of special concern is monitoring patients being treated with pain-killers after surgery. The upgraded EarlySense bedside monitoring system is ideally suited to address such concerns, Halperin said.