At-home diagnostic system sees growth in older users

Tyto Care conducted more than 650,000 telehealth exams last year as COVID-19 drives increased uptake, including in senior care environments.
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven rapid growth in the global telehealth market. This growth is unlikely to slow down anytime soon, with consulting giant McKinsey suggesting that as much as $250 billion of US healthcare spending could be “virtualized”.

Through its development of specially designed at-home diagnostic hardware, Tyto Care is taking the concept of telehealth far beyond the basic “video call” approach. The system combines a mobile app with an IoT diagnostic device and a range of adapters including stethoscope, otoscope and tongue depressor, allowing doctors to perform guided medical exams remotely.

Longevity.Technology: Telehealth has strong implications in longevity, both from a preventative health perspective and in helping overcome the healthcare provision challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic. To find out more about Tyto’s approach, we caught up with David Bardan, the company’s vice president of enterprise solutions.

Tyto was founded in 2012 by Israeli engineer and entrepreneur Denny Gilad, who originally designed the product for use with children, but quickly found it had applications for all populations.

David Bardan
David Bardan, Vice President, Enterprise Solutions, Tyto Care
“The intent was to build a comprehensive diagnostic device that could live and exist in the home,” says Bardan. “And so, after four years of development, as well as regulatory approvals, we began commercialising the product in 2017 in the US. Now we serve over 150 enterprise organisations worldwide – a mix between health system organisations, payers, employers – a wide variety of different types of customers.”
Tyto also offers its product direct-to-consumer through partnerships with companies such as Best Buy in the US.

“What’s so unique about what Tyto does is that we really intend to replicate as much as we can in terms of what you would otherwise do in person during a visit to the doctor,” says Bardan. “We’re connecting clinicians in a virtual fashion with patients, and not compromising healthcare whatsoever by still giving them the ability to remotely examine them as thoroughly as they typically would, in person.”

At-home diagnostic system sees growth in older users