Vasowatch’s proprietary labor and delivery technology was born and raised in Philadelphia: created at the University of Pennsylvania and incubated by the Penn Center of Innovation Ventures. One of the company’s founders is a Labor and Delivery nurse with close to thirty years of obstetrics nursing experience. Another co-founder is a computer scientist and prolific algorithm developer, who has leveraged technological advancements in machine learning, interoperability, wearables and battery life to create a unique approach to a relentless childbirth risk. This methodology — creating a postpartum hemorrhage solution that was affordable, accessible, and predictive — was not possible until now.
Maternal mortality in the US is the worst in the developed world, and a leading cause is postpartum hemorrhage. Every year, thousands of mothers die or suffer life-altering harm in childbirth from postpartum hemorrhage, costing the US around $1.8 billion annually, per a 2021 Commonwealth Fund report. Studies show that up to 90% of these deaths are preventable. Since black women die in childbirth at three times the rate of white women, health equity is also a consideration.
When women are admitted to give birth, hospitals administer risk assessment surveys. These tests misidentify up to 80% of the women who go on to hemorrhage. Current hemorrhage detection methods underestimate blood loss. Hospitals are hampered by staffing shortages, sicker mothers, and implicit bias in obstetrics care. Delays in hemorrhage detection and treatment can lead to unnecessary hysterectomies, bloodloss and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Vasowatch has developed clinical decision support technology that detects postpartum hemorrhage risk hours before delivery, giving clinicians the time they need to act. The mother is continuously monitored with a heartrate wearable from admission to delivery. Vasowatch’s novel algorithm analyzes her heart rate patterns to identify the exhaustion of her uterine muscle, the leading cause of hemorrhage, which prevents blood vessels from contracting properly leading to profuse and immediate bleeding. This signal could not be measured before now. This early warning enables prompt treatment at the appropriate site of care, averting up to 60% of hemorrhage incidents.
The system is easy and cost effective to implement. Hospitals already have heart rate wearables and dashboards in their labor and delivery rooms. They can either integrate them with the cloud-based algorithm or, to get started, use Vasowatch’s turnkey solution that can be set up immediately. There is no change in clinical protocol. Vasowatch’s technology identifies previously unknown “high risk” mothers enabling hospitals to properly staff, prepare medications, deploy hemorrhage carts, and designate blood products ahead of an anticipated hemorrhage, reducing delays in treatment that lead to complications and deaths.
In 2021, the Vasowatch team conducted an observational study on adiverse population of 525 women in Labor and Delivery at Pennsylvania Hospital, a Penn Medicine facility. This maternal dataset was used to technically validate the algorithm. Commercially, Vasowatch has attracted interest from eighteen distinguished health systems, including PennMedicine and Temple Health. Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans, including Independence Blue Cross, have expressed interest in incorporating Vasowatch into their national maternal health equity program. Med tech vendors see the value in adding this capability to their portfolio.
Vasowatch plans to license its software as a medical device on a subscription basis by birth to hospitals. Hospitals will be reimbursed through commercial insurers, self-insured employers and state Medicaid plans, delivering a 4:1 return on investment. When the software is on the market, it will be distributed through and/or licensed to global medtech vendors.
Considering that there are 144 million births per year globally, the company estimates it has a $2 billion annual global market opportunity, including $500 million in the US alone. Vasowatch’s Vibrant algorithm is pre-revenue, anticipated to attain FDA Pre-Market Approval by 2028. The company’s aim is to set a new standard of postpartum hemorrhage care globally, saving tens of thousands of lives.
