iBeat is a new company in San Francisco that hopes to address this problem. They are designing a new smartwatch that will monitor the wearer’s heart activity around the clock, and analyze the results. If it detects a dangerous condition, it can alert the wearer, as well as family members and emergency responders. It will include 3G cellular wireless communication, as well as a medical-grade heart rate sensor. The company has indicated that it will pursue a “Wearable-as-a-Service” business model for the product.
Ryan Howard, founder and former CEO of Practice Fusion, announced the launch of a new company, iBeat – a wearable technology company empowering people to live longer lives. Started by a team of Practice Fusion veterans, including Howard, iBeat’s mission is to empower people with the freedom to be fearless, explore, and live longer, fuller lives.
The idea to start iBeat stemmed from a close friend of Howard’s passing. Late last year, Marc Duntley, a childhood friend of Howard’s, suddenly passed away in his sleep. He was only 40 years old. Howard took this as his cue to start a company that, like Practice Fusion, helps save lives, but in a more personal manner – by speeding the delivery of care.
“Over the past decade building the largest cloud-based physician-patient platform in the U.S., I’m applying many of my learnings, including incorporating the DNA that established our award-winning culture and product, as well as reconciling many of the mistakes I made at Practice Fusion,” said Ryan Howard, founder and CEO of iBeat. “We’re incredibly excited to be bringing a Wearable-as-a-Service to market that we believe will be massively impactful to the community and will also have the potential to save lives.”
The iBeat team is led by a handful of Practice Fusion veterans including Larry Stone, Brian Boarini, and Kristin Tinsley. As iBeat’s Lead Front-End Architect, Stone oversees software architecture and engineering. He draws on nearly a decade of design experience working on projects and builds for several marquee brands including Lenovo, Tesla, Disney, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and more. Boarini is focused on iBeat’s product and business development. Prior to iBeat, he worked on projects for Google and accounting software firm Xero and was product manager for the charting and clinical teams at Practice Fusion. Tinsley, Practice Fusion’s former Senior Manager of Communications, is overseeing iBeat’s PR and marketing front. She brings more than seven years experience in communications, having worked with several early-stage and late-stage startups including MySpace, backup software provider NovaStor, digital advertising agency SteelHouse, and secure healthcare texting app TigerText.
http://www.ibeat.com/