(CBS4) – Dr. Matthew Salzberg was on vacation a few hours after his vaccination with COVID-19.
“Just a bit of a sore arm, but nothing worse than getting you a regular flu shot,” he told CBS4.
Dr. Salzberg regularly assists COVID patients as medical director of the emergency medicine department at UCHealth Hospital in Aurora. Now he helps in a different way, but he wears a device to keep track of his reactions after his vaccination.
“It’s pretty cool technology,” he explained as he unveiled a “BioButton” produced by a Golden-based company, Biointellisense.
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It communicates via bluetooth with his smartphone and an app tells him how things are going and the company keeps an eye on it.
“You get a report from the company every few hours telling you what your vitality has been up to in the past few hours.”
The device sticks to his chest and Dr. Richard Zane, Chief Innovation Officer at UCHealth and Chief of Emergency Services at UCHealth Hospital, measures and transmits data on heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate and a certain amount of movement.
“There are delayed responses that we don’t know about,” said Dr. Zane. “It’s a new vaccine, and it appears to be extremely safe based on the clinical trial data… we want to be careful, especially with that older, vulnerable patient population. So what we’re looking for in that patient population is some suspicion of deterioration. So any suspicion of a fever occurs. Any suspicion of an increase in respiratory rate, any suspicion of an increase in heart rate and what that means in combination with a combination of movement. “
The devices may detect not only minor signs of complications with the vaccine, but also infection with the virus.
A total of 100 people receive the devices with their photos. They get them one day before each of the two injections and then wear them for a week.
“What we can also do is use an algorithm to distinguish between what could be a side effect of the vaccine and what could be an active COVID infection.”
“We’ll be able to keep an eye on you and watch and make sure you’re ok with this,” explained Dr. Salzberg explains. “There are people who monitor this remotely and so these apps can warn you and contact you too.”
That would be the case in the case of some dangerous looking data. People can be called to get medical care or possibly even an ambulance.
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Dr. Salzberg checked the data a few hours after his shot.
“In the first four hours after my injection, no change,” he said.
‘We don’t see anything. It’s just too early, ”said Dr. Zane.
But they will collect data and use it to better deal with the virus and warn of any reactions to the vaccine.
“They can get complications from the vaccine that can be interpreted as COVID and they can develop COVID that can be interpreted as complications from the vaccine, and we can distinguish between the two.”
The devices are truly a future in healthcare. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities can use them to track down people with various illnesses.
“We are really much broader. We are thinking of patients with difficult to control diabetes, heart failure, heart disease, hypertension, kidney disease, ”said Dr. Zane.
Patients discharged from the hospital with COVID sometimes need to come back if symptoms subside and increase. By placing BioButtons or similar devices on it, hospitals can intervene if they have problems.
Dr. Zane also sees another use.
“We envision that people in skilled nursing facilities will all wear such a device all the time, let alone after they have been vaccinated.”