Australian and Iraqi engineers have designed a system to remotely measure blood pressure by filming a person's forehead and extracting cardiac signals using artificial intelligence algorithms. Using the same remote-health technology they pioneered to monitor vital health signs from a distance, engineers from the University of South Australia and Baghdad's Middle Technical University have designed a non-contact system to accurately measure systolic and diastolic pressure. It could replace the existing uncomfortable and cumbersome method of strapping an inflatable cuff to a patient's arm or wrist, the researchers claim. In a new paper published in Inventions, the researchers describe the technique, which involves filming a person from a short distance for 10 seconds and extracting cardiac signals from two regions in the forehead, using artificial intelligence algorithms. The systolic and diastolic readings were around 90 per cent accurate, compared to the existing instrument (a digital sphygmomanometer) used to measure blood pressure, that is itself subject to errors.

Riva Health, founded by scientist Tuhin Sinha and Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus, wants to help people measure their blood pressure in a clinically approved way. Blood pressure can help indicate at-risk patients before they are actually at risk, showing early signs of heart disease. While other hardware solutions on the market promise the same end goal, Riva wants to be a purely software solution that integrates with hardware that it thinks its end user has anyway: their smartphone. The company, launching out of stealth today, has raised $15.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from True Ventures. Greg Yap of Menlo, who talked to Sinha for three years before investing, will be joining the board.

We are all witnesses that 2016 was the year when Digital Health technologies took off and developed actively. Such rapid growth was partly due to the emergence of numerous wearable tech devices, but also due to numerous breakthroughs in other IT-related business areas. Digital health improves the quality of life, increases the lifespan, and gives people an opportunity to learn more about their lifestyles and how their bodies work. Most importantly, digital health (or, more specifically, digital healthcare) changes and improves the quality of care for patients, by enhancing the instruments for surgeons and other medical staff. Let's find out what are the main trends in health information technologies (HIT) and how will they affect the development of the sphere as a whole.