The Next Chapter: Sway Medical and the Clinical Market
By Kerry Daley at Sway Medical - August 2021
Over the past decade, clinical care has seen an abundance of mobile medical applications, commonly referred to as Software as a Medical Device (SaMD), integrated into patient care. These tools have simplified healthcare and made it more accessible for patients, with applications ranging from calculating appropriate insulin dosage based on a patient’s blood glucose level to determining risk factors associated with epileptic seizures. The use of SaMDs can be used across many different medical specialties, including medical professionals interested in balance, cognitive, and functional assessments.
Sway Medical’s product is used widely throughout the sports market, with experienced professionals and an established base of users validating the company's credibility. Sway’s research and data science team works closely with researchers at leading academic institutions such as Harvard, Duke, and Wichita State University to conduct research, gather data, and validate the Sway platform. The platform has contributed to over 4 million total tests administered, 400,000 users, and over 1,000 organizations thus far, an attestation to the utility and value Sway has in the sports market.
Sway’s products make previously subjective assessments immediately objective, allowing athletic trainers to better care for their athletes. An informed return-to-play decision is essential for an athletic trainer, as it can assist in identifying a head injury that needs immediate attention or one that requires additional testing. Sway assessments reduce time commitments by allowing for the baselining of multiple athletes simultaneously, freeing up time for the always busy lifestyle of an athletic trainer. Accessibility, accuracy, and efficiency are at the core of Sway’s product, providing athletic trainers the high-quality assurance they need in a balance, functional, and cognitive assessment tool to make challenging decisions in the most challenging scenarios.
As Sway expands into the clinical market, accessibility, accuracy, and efficiency continue to be of utmost importance. Accessibility of Sway’s tests reduce the burden of unnecessary cumbersome and costly equipment required to conduct traditional cognitive, balance, and functional assessments. The utilization of the highly responsive sensors embedded in every mobile device translates accurate and reliable assessment data into visible trends that provide valuable insight into short- and long-term care trajectories. Additionally, the provider can administer both a cognitive, functional, and balance assessment in its entirety within minutes on one platform for their patient, eliminating the inconveniences of multiple patient appointments and excessive time spent on reaching a medical conclusion. These benefits improve the daily clinical experience for the provider and patient, without sacrificing performance or standard of care.
Sway's clinical package combines Sway’s traditional cognitive and balance tests with new functional and additional cognitive tests that complement an already robust platform capable of performing a wide range of clinical assessments. Examples of upcoming functional tests to look out for include Timed Up and Go, Tandem Gate, 30-Second Chair Stand Test, and Functional Squat. Newer cognitive tests include a modified Eriksen Flanker Task, Cued Stroop, and Reverse Number Counting.
Sway’s new clinical tests have strong use cases as cognitive impairment screenings in conditions like mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s Disease, and fall risk in the 65+ population. Sway allows clinical professionals to objectively identify health patterns and trajectories, enabling patient and family planning as well as clinical interventions, as needed. Sway’s platform boasts multiple balance, cognitive, and functional assessments appropriate for use across many clinical and sports settings, making it the most versatile mobile health tool on the market today.
The company continues to bolster its tool kit of accessible, accurate, and efficient tests and applications, with an eye towards additional clinical- and consumer-based uses. Sway Medical is undoubtedly equipped to handle their transition into the clinical market and the delivery of a greatly improved experience for both provider and patient. Unnecessary subjective clinical assessments is a thing of the past. Objective clinical assessments collected using Sway’s accessible, accurate, and efficient mobile-based tool is primed to change the medical industry now and for years to come.
Want to know more? Contact sales@swaymedical.com