A post written by Jessica Shull (Digital Therapeutics Alliance), Dr. Keith Grimes (Babylon Health), and Alexandra Yembele (Withings). Last edit: October, 8th
Health systems are evolving beyond the doctor’s office
Countries aim to improve current standards of care for their populations while developing novel ways to treat patients with acute health conditions. This evolution has only quickened in the midst of a continuously shifting pandemic, and the result of this adaptation is the adoption of digital health technologies (DHT) and the care spectrum evolution. Although DHT has been developing for the last 20 years, the physical dangers of being together during a pandemic has sped up the need for doctors to be able to collect actionable insights and extend care beyond the office setting. The advances in DHT could offer integrated care for whole populations in countries across the globe while providing tools so that potentially, no one is left behind.
New solutions for new challenges
There are several examples that show how healthcare systems are adopting innovative pathways for DHTs. Three examples include:
Regulatory authorities in Germany have now approved digital therapies and diagnostics which may be prescribed nationally to 78 million people;
As part of insurance benefits in some countries, employers are utilizing connected devices like sleep trackers and heart rate monitors to encourage employees to improve health indicators;
In 2019, few physicians in Germany utilized telemedicine platforms (virtual visits with patients via phone or online), but this year there was a 200% increase in some parts of the country due to the pandemic.
These examples highlight countries’ need to find new ways to interact with patients and provide care within existing healthcare systems.
The best-case scenario is when these three resources — digital therapeutics, remote patient monitoring, and telemedicine platforms — work together. This trio of digital health technologies and the care spectrum evolution can be used to assist a wide variety of patients including those who have for example, hypertension, diabetes, implant receivers, and or COPD.
The ideal DHT Combination
The European Respiratory Society estimates 15–20% of adults over 40 in Europe suffer from this Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). A typical patient, who we’ll call Maria, might visit a doctor every six months for routine COPD checkups, but collecting data biannually may not provide the information needed to see important health trends and anticipate potential complications. Rather than relying on these infrequent visits, COPD patients could access the benefits of DHT via digital care products to manage the disease.
Firstly, this type of patient needs access to personal medical devices that can actively monitor health at home or on the go. The Withings ScanWatch is an example of a connected device that can monitor this patient’s oxygen saturation and daily walking distance multiple times a day rather than the typical protocol, which is to wait six months to measure indicators in hospital. The next step towards DHT solutions entails the bridge between patients’ data and medical providers. Combined with the care spectrum evolution, the backend integration of Withings’ open API allows Babylon, a telemedicine platform, to automatically and safely receive data that patients have authorized to be sent. Medical providers would then have on-demand access to the data and can adjust this patient’s medications accordingly while also monitoring the long-term effectiveness of treatment.
In addition to the medical device and telemedicine bridge between patient and provider, using a companion digital therapeutics (DTx) for COPD could help improve patient outcomes. The DTx is clinically-validated, works with medications, tracks triggers that reduce oxygen levels, and helps adjust key behaviors to optimize overall condition. Due to the insights provided via the DTx, COPD patients can avoid taking walks on days with high levels of air pollution, lower the use of rescue inhalers, understand how to best exercise, and experience reduced dyspnoea episodes.
The combination of device, telemedicine, and DTx is a suite of technologies composing DHT that can help patients and providers co-create care plans that help identify goals and well-defined actions to improve health and change key behaviors. While patients can still check in every 6 months with providers, with the care spectrum evolution, data is being delivered more frequently which could reduce hospital visits and deliver better health indicators.
However, dumping large amounts of patient vitals every day is not the answer, which is why providers can enable a series of alerts that initiate a clinician review based on patient triggers revolving around personal conditions and health history. In this case, doctors only see the information that is needed, not daily dumps of data.
Who are the DHT minds behind this article?
Babylon Health
Babylon Health is a globally leading technology company with the ambitious mission to put an accessible and affordable health service in the hands of every person on Earth. We combine technology and medical expertise to bring doctors and people closer together, with digital health tools designed to empower people with knowledge about their health. Through a range of digital health services — such as an AI-backed app and video doctor appointments — we provide around-the-clock access to affordable, holistic healthcare services and information. We work with governments, health providers and insurers across the globe, and healthcare facilities from small local practices to large hospitals. With a $2Bn valuation, Babylon covers 20 million people across the globe, and has delivered more than 8m virtual consultations and AI interactions.We have teamed up with 170 impactful worldwide partners — including Mount Sinai Health Partners, the NHS, Telus Health, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Government of Rwanda — to fulfil our vision of accessible and affordable healthcare, for all. For more information, visit https://www.babylonhealth.com
Withings
Withings produces medical grade devices for at-home monitoring so that patients can understand with precision their symptoms and trends in indicators. Withings’ mission is to continuously and effortlessly provide healthcare professionals with medical-grade data generated by patients from an ecosystem of connected devices. For more than a decade, Withings has built a range of award-winning products including activity trackers, connected scales, a wireless blood pressure monitor, a smart temporal thermometer, and an advanced sleep system. From remote patient monitoring to clinical research to chronic disease management, Withings has dedicated solutions that provide the richest array of accurate real-world data thanks to a complete ecosystem of connected devices, data connectivity options, and a remote patient monitoring platform. Visit our website here.
Digital Therapeutics Alliance
Founded in 2017, the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA) is a non-profit trade association of industry leaders and stakeholders engaged in the evidence-driven advancement of digital therapeutics. DTA maintains an international industry focus and is headquartered in the United States. DTA exists to broaden the understanding, adoption, and integration of clinically evaluated digital therapeutics into healthcare through education, advocacy, and research. In Europe, digital therapeutics offer regulated, CE marked digital therapies to patients with a diagnosed condition or disease. Most DTx products in Europe require third-party authorization or a prescription from a qualified clinician. Digital therapeutics undergo clinical trials, collect real world outcomes, and are based on patient-centered core principles and product development best practices, including product design, usability, data security, and privacy standards.
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Chronic Kidney Disease stage 5 on dialysis (CKD5D) presents one of the most complex and high-risk scenarios in modern medicine. Among the many challenges faced by these patients, cardiovascular disease (CVD) stands out as the leading cause of mortality—a stark reminder of the systemic stress that accompanies kidney failure and dialysis.
But what if technology could help bridge the gap between dialysis sessions, offering clinicians a window into the patient's health in real-time? An article in Frontiers in Nephrology explores exactly that, highlighting the transformative potential of digital health technologies to monitor and manage CKD5D patients beyond the clinic.
The Hidden Risks Between Dialysis Sessions
For CKD5D patients, the risks of CVD are amplified by both traditional and disease-specific factors:
Traditional risks like hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
CKD-specific risks such as inflammation, fluid overload, protein-energy wasting and vascular calcification.
The dialysis process itself, which induces rapid fluid shifts, blood pressure fluctuations, and metabolic imbalances.
Current clinical care models often focus on in-center dialysis data, leaving a crucial blind spot during the interdialytic period—a time when many adverse events begin to develop unnoticed.
A New Monitoring Paradigm: The Withings Toolkit
The article introduces a compelling case for home-based, connected health technologies—specifically, the Withings toolkit. This suite of medical-grade, consumer-friendly devices allows CKD patients to monitor key health indicators in the comfort of their homes:
Weight, body composition and ECG monitoring with the BodyScan smart scale.
Blood pressure, heart rate and survey responses for added context via BPM Pro 2.
Sleep quality and breathing event metrics using the Sleep Rx.
All data is seamlessly uploaded to the Withings Remote Patient Monitoring platform, providing healthcare providers and researchers with real-time, longitudinal insights into a patient’s well-being.
Why This Matters: Real-World Clinical Benefits
1. Early Detection of Complications Weight gain could signal fluid retention, but muscle loss could indicate protein-energy wasting. A sudden spike in blood pressure or irregular heartbeat might indicate arrhythmias or volume overload. Poor sleep patterns could reflect apnea or restless leg syndrome—conditions with known ties to CKD.
2. Personalized, Data-Driven Care These devices enable a dynamic view of health trends, allowing clinicians to tailor treatments proactively rather than reactively. Medication adjustments, fluid restrictions, or further diagnostics can be made with greater confidence.
3. Patient Empowerment
When patients can see and understand their own data, they become more engaged in their care. This promotes better self-management, increased treatment adherence, and a stronger sense of control over their condition.
4. Systemic Healthcare Advantages Remote monitoring can reduce emergency visits and hospitalizations, easing the burden on overtaxed healthcare systems and offering a cost-effective alternative to frequent in-person evaluations.
The Future: Digital Tools as Standard of Care?
While still in its early stages, this integration of digital health into CKD care reflects a broader movement toward remote, preventative, and personalized medicine. The Withings case study serves as a promising example of how everyday technology can be adapted to serve complex clinical needs.
However, as the authors note, more clinical trials are needed to validate these tools in nephrology settings, establish protocols for data use, and ensure equitable access across diverse patient populations.
Final Thoughts
As we face growing rates of kidney disease and limited nephrology resources, connected health technologies offer a lifeline—not just to patients, but to an entire care infrastructure in need of modernization.
The Withings toolkit is more than a gadget suite; it's a glimpse into the future of chronic disease management, where data flows continuously, care is adaptive, and patients are active participants in their own health journey.
Contact Us
[post_title] => Revolutionizing Chronic Kidney Disease Management with Digital Health Tools: The Withings Case Study
[post_excerpt] => Researchers from Imperial College London explored how continuous, contactless sleep monitoring using the Withings Sleep Analyzer can be used to detect acute conditions, focusing particularly on urinary tract infections (UTIs) before patients even recognize symptoms.
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Introduction
A recent study published in Frontiers in Digital Health by Capstick et al. (2024) underscores an emerging insight in connected care: our sleep may hold the earliest signs of illness. The researchers explored how continuous, contactless sleep monitoring using the Withings Sleep Analyzer can be used to detect acute conditions, focusing particularly on urinary tract infections (UTIs) before patients even recognize symptoms.
Why UTIs Matter
UTIs are among the most common bacterial infections and can have serious consequences, especially for older adults. Elderly patients are often less likely to recognize or report early symptoms, as infections may present atypically with fatigue, confusion, or subtle behavioral changes rather than the classic urinary urgency or burning. Cognitive decline, sensory changes, and overlapping chronic conditions can further delay diagnosis, increasing the risk of severe complications such as sepsis or hospitalization (National Institute on Aging).
Sleep as a Source of Early Clues
The study found that changes in nocturnal physiology such as altered heart rate, respiratory rate, movement patterns, and restlessness can signal infection onset days before clinical diagnosis. These signals are detectable through non-contact sensors that monitor sleep continuously in the home environment.
Capstick and colleagues demonstrated that automated analysis of nightly biometric data could identify deviations associated with early infection, including UTIs. Because sleep reflects autonomic nervous system activity and systemic inflammation, subtle physiological disruptions during rest can serve as early indicators of infection or other health deterioration.
Implications for Remote Monitoring
These findings highlight how sleep monitoring could serve as a low-burden, scalable screening tool for early infection detection, particularly for vulnerable populations such as older adults, individuals in long-term care, or patients with chronic diseases. Integrating this capability into remote monitoring programs could help clinicians:
Detect infections earlier and initiate treatment sooner.
Reduce emergency visits and hospitalizations linked to delayed diagnosis.
Monitor recovery and flag recurrence through ongoing nocturnal data.
A New Frontier for Preventive Care
The study reinforces the growing role of connected devices in transforming passive observation into proactive health surveillance. By continuously analyzing sleep patterns, care teams can detect not only chronic deterioration but also acute, time-sensitive conditions like UTIs.
As the authors note, sleep monitoring technologies offer “an opportunity to identify clinically significant events earlier than would otherwise be possible.” For connected health innovators, this opens a new frontier: turning nightly rest into a source of life-saving insight.
Reference: Capstick A, et al. Digital remote monitoring for screening and early detection of disease using nocturnal physiological signals.Frontiers in Digital Health. 2024. Available via PMC.
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[post_title] => Sleep as an Early Warning System: Detecting Hidden Health Risks Like Urinary Tract Infections
[post_excerpt] => Researchers from Imperial College London explored how continuous, contactless sleep monitoring using the Withings Sleep Analyzer can be used to detect acute conditions, focusing particularly on urinary tract infections (UTIs) before patients even recognize symptoms.
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This article is based on our November 14, 2025 interview with Christelle Bakarat.
Christelle Bakarat is the Head of Chemistry for Withings, a role she has held since 2020, after joining the company in 2016. She studied chemistry and chemical engineering, with a PhD in plasma physics. The team she leads is specialized in the development of chemical and biochemical reactions on paper for the detection of biomarkers in urine and other body fluids.
Emma Lugten (EL): Christelle, thank you for taking the time to talk about U-Scan for our researcher newsletter. The product is getting a lot of attention. Can you tell us how the U-Scan product got started and how its main goal has changed over time?
Christelle Barakat (CB): Absolutely. The first idea for U-Scan came from Éric [Carreel] back in 2014 after a discussion with a doctor. The original goal was very specific: to use detailed urine analysis as an easy way to check for prostate cancer. I joined the company in 2016, and since then, the project has grown a lot. We realized the core technology could do much more than just check for one disease. The vision changed from a simple testing tool to a broad platform for checking your health every day. This bigger goal is what has really shaped how we’ve developed the product.
EL: That’s a great way to put it. Can you explain the current technology? What makes U-Scan stand out when it comes to checking your health at home?
CB): We are currently working with the third, very advanced version of U-Scan. We first had an electrochemical version, followed by a very advanced microfluidic chip and we are now using paper chemistry based on classical dipstick models. The system is composed of two parts, a reader and a cartridge where the reader is durable and the cartridge is a consumable. By having one standard device we can address different use cases by selecting the relevant urinary biomarkers to analyse. What truly sets U-Scan apart from existing solutions is the seamless experience combined with its ability to provide a goldmine of concrete, quantifiable data, all without requiring users to change their daily habits. This data empowers users to optimize their lifestyle, their diet, or their medical condition.
The core value of this system lies in its ability to test a wide array of biomarkers and support numerous use cases by simply swapping cartridges, ensuring that different needs are addressed effectively, even if the initial cost may be a bit high.
EL: What are those different uses? What can we buy right now, and what new applications can we look forward to soon?
CB: The first product we launched is a nutrition cartridge. This gives people immediate, helpful feedback on their diet and how much water they are drinking. This is a great way to start the habit of checking their health all the time. Looking ahead, we have big plans for new health checks. We are working on cartridges for important areas where people need help, including kidney stones, bacterial urinary tract infections (UTIs), how the body handles stress, and a special cartridge focused on women’s health. The kidney stone and UTI cartridges, for example, go beyond simple tracking to give important early warning signs, which can be vital for people managing those conditions.
EL: It sounds like you are getting into some serious medical areas. Are you working with any researchers or running clinical studies to prove that the technology works for these new uses?
CB: Yes, that is extremely important to us. While U-Scan is not yet a medical device, we have adopted a very rigorous scientific approach. We have worked with several doctors to confirm the clinical utility of our biomarkers, and we have conducted analytical performance studies according to medical guidelines and criteria. We are now initiating a proof-of-concept study to demonstrate that the mere act of using U-Scan drives positive behavioral changes that mitigate the risk of kidney stones, and a subsequent study is planned to validate the long-term effectiveness of our Calci cartridge in reducing the rate of kidney stone recurrence.
EL: Finally, looking past the products you’ve already planned, do you have a personal, long-term dream for what U-Scan could achieve?
CB: My personal dream is to take U-Scan even further and create a cartridge that is purely for prevention. This wouldn’t be for a single illness, but instead, it would check a mix of general markers, things like how much salt or sugar you have in your system, and general signs of inflammation. The main goal is to give people an ongoing, clear picture of their health before a problem even starts, or at least early enough to reverse the tendency. Imagine seeing a possible issue starting and being able to make small changes, all based on the daily chemistry of your body. That is the kind of powerful, forward-looking health care I hope U-Scan can make possible.
Interested in partnering with us?
Contact Us
[post_title] => An Interview with Christelle Bakarat on the Research Potential of U-Scan
[post_excerpt] => Christelle Bakarat is the Head of Chemistry for Withings, this article is based on an interview with her where she discusses how U-Scan came to be, and its potential for research across different diseases and conditions.
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Chronic Kidney Disease stage 5 on dialysis (CKD5D) presents one of the most complex and high-risk scenarios in modern medicine. Among the many challenges faced by these patients, cardiovascular disease (CVD) stands out as the leading cause of mortality—a stark reminder of the systemic stress that accompanies kidney failure and dialysis.
But what if technology could help bridge the gap between dialysis sessions, offering clinicians a window into the patient's health in real-time? An article in Frontiers in Nephrology explores exactly that, highlighting the transformative potential of digital health technologies to monitor and manage CKD5D patients beyond the clinic.
The Hidden Risks Between Dialysis Sessions
For CKD5D patients, the risks of CVD are amplified by both traditional and disease-specific factors:
Traditional risks like hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
CKD-specific risks such as inflammation, fluid overload, protein-energy wasting and vascular calcification.
The dialysis process itself, which induces rapid fluid shifts, blood pressure fluctuations, and metabolic imbalances.
Current clinical care models often focus on in-center dialysis data, leaving a crucial blind spot during the interdialytic period—a time when many adverse events begin to develop unnoticed.
A New Monitoring Paradigm: The Withings Toolkit
The article introduces a compelling case for home-based, connected health technologies—specifically, the Withings toolkit. This suite of medical-grade, consumer-friendly devices allows CKD patients to monitor key health indicators in the comfort of their homes:
Weight, body composition and ECG monitoring with the BodyScan smart scale.
Blood pressure, heart rate and survey responses for added context via BPM Pro 2.
Sleep quality and breathing event metrics using the Sleep Rx.
All data is seamlessly uploaded to the Withings Remote Patient Monitoring platform, providing healthcare providers and researchers with real-time, longitudinal insights into a patient’s well-being.
Why This Matters: Real-World Clinical Benefits
1. Early Detection of Complications Weight gain could signal fluid retention, but muscle loss could indicate protein-energy wasting. A sudden spike in blood pressure or irregular heartbeat might indicate arrhythmias or volume overload. Poor sleep patterns could reflect apnea or restless leg syndrome—conditions with known ties to CKD.
2. Personalized, Data-Driven Care These devices enable a dynamic view of health trends, allowing clinicians to tailor treatments proactively rather than reactively. Medication adjustments, fluid restrictions, or further diagnostics can be made with greater confidence.
3. Patient Empowerment
When patients can see and understand their own data, they become more engaged in their care. This promotes better self-management, increased treatment adherence, and a stronger sense of control over their condition.
4. Systemic Healthcare Advantages Remote monitoring can reduce emergency visits and hospitalizations, easing the burden on overtaxed healthcare systems and offering a cost-effective alternative to frequent in-person evaluations.
The Future: Digital Tools as Standard of Care?
While still in its early stages, this integration of digital health into CKD care reflects a broader movement toward remote, preventative, and personalized medicine. The Withings case study serves as a promising example of how everyday technology can be adapted to serve complex clinical needs.
However, as the authors note, more clinical trials are needed to validate these tools in nephrology settings, establish protocols for data use, and ensure equitable access across diverse patient populations.
Final Thoughts
As we face growing rates of kidney disease and limited nephrology resources, connected health technologies offer a lifeline—not just to patients, but to an entire care infrastructure in need of modernization.
The Withings toolkit is more than a gadget suite; it's a glimpse into the future of chronic disease management, where data flows continuously, care is adaptive, and patients are active participants in their own health journey.
Our patient-centric care solution utilizes portable Withings cellular devices that are not tied to a single patient. Instead, care teams can use one device to collect and transmit data for an unlimited number of individuals. The integrated cellular connectivity automatically directs the data into the correct patient’s medical record, simplifying data collection and improving care delivery regardless of the setting.
