Emanate Wireless PowerPath monitor
Emanate Wireless is a health IT company seeking to make it easier for hospitals to track down medical equipment and monitor utilization rates and other useful information. The business harnesses WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy for its real-time location system (RTLS) tags — think of the company as part Internet of (Healthcare) Things and part Software as a Service. The Cleveland-based startup announced this week that it raised $1.5 million from angel investors, according to a news release.
Neil Diener, Emanate Wireless CEO and cofounder, told MedCity News in a phone interview the funding will be used to increase sales and marketing muscle, boost inventory and product development efforts.
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So far, the company has developed two different monitoring devices branded PowerPath. One is to monitor refrigeration so that nurses, lab technicians, and pharmacists are alerted when temperatures change to guard against spoilage of pharmaceuticals, lab specimens and blood supplies. The PowerPath Temp sensors also monitor the power level of refrigerators, provides analytics on the defrost cycle and can transmit early maintenance warnings before the refrigerators break down.
Another monitor is designed to give location and use analytics for high-value equipment, such as ventilators.
From Diener’s perspective, Emanate’s technology addresses a couple of the pain points associated with some forms of Radio Frequency IDentification or RFID technology — the cost burden of needing to frequently replace batteries and an inefficient data feed. Emanate’s RTLS tags can recharge their batteries through the AC power cord for the medical device they monitor when the device is plugged in, according to Diener.
Emanate complements its hardware offer with an analytics service that’s designed to help hospital staff not only track basic inventory data such as location and number but also offers insights such as how often a group of the same devices has been used and which ones have been used less than others.
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The company has deployed its technology at two hospitals in Cleveland Clinic’s network — Avon Hospital and Marymount Hospital.
Diener said Emanate’s business model is two-pronged. The company sells its monitoring devices, but also charges an annual subscription fee for the analytics reports derived from the monitoring data.
“To really get at workflow issues, you need to know things like when is the device in use? How does it fit into hospital’s workflow? Proprietary technology gets very expensive.”
Some of the other companies in the healthcare supply chain tech space include KitCheck, MEPS Real-Time, and Logi-D.
