The idea for a wearable device that continuously monitors blood pressure arose out of the frustration of not being able to accurately measure blood pressure for many patients who arrive at the emergency room. Standard practice recommends the use of an arterial catheter but there are often difficulties of establishing an arterial catheter on the most distressed patients, there are delays in introducing the catheter and several patients do not qualify for the procedure. Patrick McCarville, MD, a practicing emergency room physician decided to form ExPulsus LLC, with the stated goal of designing a device that would provide critical blood pressure information accurately and continuously. The idea is to create a simple, smartwatch-like disk with a pressurized thin film membrane that mimics the “finger on the pulse” method of measuring pulse and blood pressure.

The need for such a device was confirmed in a regional NSF I-Corps program and supported the advisory commitment of Dr. David Yamane and Dr. Neal Sikka, experienced emergency medicine physicians at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

We at ExPulsus are developing a non-invasive pressure sensitive wearable device that will be used to measure blood pressure accurately and continuously.