By Business & Finance 
The funding is a result of the latest round of Horizon 2020 funding to commercialise a new respiratory monitoring device to improve patient outcomes.
RespiraSense – PMD’s premier product – is the world’s first continuous and accurate discrete sensor measures that measure the mechanics of respiration.
It gives medical staff the earliest signs of possible patient deterioration from conditions such as respiratory compromise, increasing severity of sepsis, worsening pneumonia, and oncoming heart attacks.
The device, a discrete wireless sensor, is placed on the patient’s chest at admission and worn continuously until discharge to deliver highly accurate measurements, which is ideally designed for general ward patients who are alert and active.
Myles Murray, founder, PMD Solutions, said: “Respiratory rate is a key indicator of a patients general well-being so changes in this vital sign can be indications of respiratory compromise, increasing severity of sepsis, worsening pneumonia, and predict oncoming heart attacks – some of hospitals most frequently occurring adverse events. RespiraSense is designed to continuously measure this vital sign, which if detected to be abnormal can help medical staff prevent these from happening with patients on the general ward. This can produce better patient outcomes and overall reduce length of stay for patients in hospitals and to free up beds – a current need for Emergency Departments nationwide.”
RespiraSense is currently being used in hospitals in Ireland, Germany, and Hong Kong. By the end of 2015 PMD plans the device actively used in 5 to 10 hospitals around the world. This European funding will allow PMD to extend the application of its technology to monitoring chronic patients at home and also to support home screening of patients at risk of sleep apnoea – a sleeping disorder that can advance into other conditions if left untreated.
PMD currently employs 10 and has plans to increase its team by a further 11 people over the next 18 months.
