MFine brings blood pressure and glucose monitoring on smartphones

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], March 22 (ANI/BusinessWire India): India’s leading Digital Health platform MFine today announced a path-breaking innovation by bringing Blood Pressure (BP) and Glucose Monitoring on a smartphone.
In an industry-first breakthrough, MFine added BP & Glucose monitoring to the suite of self-check health tools available on its app, eliminating the need of any external devices to measure & track these health vitals.
Launched 3 weeks ago in beta, the BP monitoring tool has already been used by more than 10000 users and is clocking over thousands of readings everyday by users from across the country. With a focus on building an integrated care experience for its users, MFine is working on various next-gen AI technologies which convert any smartphone into rich diagnostics and vitals monitoring device.
MFine is currently doing trial runs with leading hospitals for the glucose monitoring tool which is expected to go live in the coming weeks. The company is preparing for certifications of its algorithms, with data of thousands of measurements to improve accuracy and reliability of the measurements.
The MFine vitals’ measurement feature has been in development for two years with deep AI research conducted in partnership with leading hospitals and successful trials conducted with more than 3000 patients.
MFine has built a proprietary algorithm that measures the Blood Pressure using a smartphone by obtaining a PhotoPlethysmoGram (PPG) signal from the user’s fingertip when it is placed on the smartphone camera. By observing subtle changes in color across red and blue wavelengths of the PPG signal, a prediction of BP and Glucose is made.
MFine’s machine learning algorithm, trained with thousands of patients’ data makes the prediction accurate. The algorithm is able to measure BP with close to 90% accuracy. This feature is available on MFine App for Android users in selected mobile models and will soon be launched for most mobile devices including iPhones.
India is currently experiencing a massive increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and bears a higher burden than most nations – particularly in cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, hypertension and diabetes. There are more than 200 million diagnosed hypertension patients in the country who have limited access to BP measuring tools for at-home and personal use.
Similarly, there are over 80 million diabetes patients and 200 million pre-diabetic people in India who primarily monitor their glucose levels by using blood tests which are time taking and invasive. While wearables cater to only a certain section of the society, smartphones are more ubiquitous and affordable in India.
By building these tools and using the power of both mobile sensors and AI, MFine is transforming every smartphone into a vitals measurement device so that millions of people can now check their critical health parameters regularly without any complication, losing time or additional cost.
MFine is already used by millions of people for teleconsultations from across the country. Bringing vitals measurement and monitoring to smartphones drastically changes the quality of care people will receive from healthcare practitioners. Doctors can now get important data about the patients’ health and are able to increase the accuracy of diagnosis in telemedicine scenarios. Through these features, people can easily monitor their vitals, get timely intervention and also get continuous care particularly in chronic conditions.
India is at the cusp of a ‘digital health’ revolution and new digital tools and technologies are already starting to make an impact across the healthcare system in India and hold great promise to transform the delivery of health services in the near future by improving efficiency and bettering patient care. The GoI is also pushing the adoption of digital health through the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) which aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country. Enabling monitoring of vital health parameters through smartphones can collect data in real-time, which will help with rapid diagnosis, timely and proper treatment at an early stage, eliminating travel and wait times for diagnosis. It will also increase operational efficiencies for doctors and empower patients with improved support and feedback.
MFine is focussed on delivering an AI-driven, on-demand healthcare service across India, and aims to be one of the largest virtual hospitals in the world with services across primary care, secondary care and chronic care management in collaboration with its trusted partners. Over 3 million users have used MFine services with the platform clocking over 300,000 monthly transactions that include doctor consultations, diagnostic tests, e-pharmacy and in-patient procedures. More than 6000 doctors, including some of India’s top doctors from over 700 reputed hospitals practice across 35 specialties on MFine and serve millions in more than 1000 towns across India.
Supporting Quotes
Ajit Narayanan, CTO, MFine
“Advances in the areas of big data, artificial intelligence and mobile technology have opened new opportunities for monitoring health, detecting and preventing diseases using smartphones. By enabling vitals monitoring through smartphones, MFine aims to make basic health assessments universal, easy and free to use for millions of people in India. You will see more such innovations from MFine in this area in the coming months. We are excited at MFine to lead this major transformation in healthcare through the usage of smartphones as vitals monitoring device. This innovation is a step towards that ambitious goal.”
Dr Sreekanth Shetty, Interventional Cardiologist, Sakra World Hospital, Bengaluru
“Hypertension and Diabetes is rising in India at a phenomenal rate and it is important for people to monitor their health effectively and in a timely manner. Smartphones are already ubiquitous in India and it will prove to be a gamechanger in preventive health and vitals monitoring. Many people in India cannot afford expensive devices and wearables but own a smartphone which they can use now to monitor their health. We are excited about the developments at MFine and how the company is using AI to augment and enable quality healthcare delivery in every nook and corner of the country. BP and Glucose monitoring on smartphones will be truly transformational and we are excited about its endless possibilities and impact.”
Dr B Hygriv Rao, Senior Cardiologist, KIMS Hospitals, Hyderabad
“We would like to congratulate MFine on taking this bold step towards building digital health tools in a country where there is a massive penetration of smartphones. It is essential for a large country like India to pioneer technologies and develop tools which are developed to ensure quality care is delivered in a timely manner to all people. This product allows monitoring BP and Glucose to be done by anyone with a smartphone and makes it easier for everyone to track their health without needing any other device. The preliminary demonstration of this tool appears to be encouraging and we look forward to more clinical experience and wider usage.”
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