South Korean firm Sky Labs has introduced a smart ring to monitor blood pressure in hospital wards.

The Cart On device uses a ring-type blood pressure monitor to measure and manage the blood pressure data of inpatients automatically.

This expands Sky Labs’ business beyond the existing outpatient and consumer markets into the field of inpatient ward monitoring. The ward-specific product has been added to the certified Cart BP Pro medical devices for outpatient clinical use and the Cart BP for consumers to address every stage where blood pressure measurement is required, from daily life to hospital wards.

The Cart On is optimised for enhancing convenience in medical settings by streamlining cumbersome measurement procedures. When medical staff prescribe a ring-type monitor instead of a conventional cuff-type device for patients who require 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, the device’s built-in photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor automatically measures the patient’s blood pressure and collects relevant data.

The collected data are linked with Seers Technology’s ThynC (seerstech.com/lang_en/thync.php) inpatient monitoring platform, and are automatically transmitted to and recorded in the nurse station dashboard and the hospital’s EMR system. Currently, Daewoong Pharmaceutical (crm.daewoong.co.kr/), a South Korean pharmaceutical company, holds the domestic sales rights for this and plans to supply it to hospital distribution networks nationwide.

Sky Labs has secured global-level technical and clinical reliability by conducting comparative clinical trials with existing standard methods – including cuff-based 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and invasive arterial line (A-line) – to prove the clinical validity of the ring-type blood pressure monitor. Notably, through comparative trials with the A-line, considered the gold-standard of blood pressure measurement, the company proved that precise monitoring is possible even in situations with high blood pressure fluctuations.

The introduction is expected to enhance the work efficiency of medical staff in wards. In terms of nursing, it reduces potential errors that may occur during manual entry and simplifies recording and reporting tasks, helping nurses focus on their core professional duties such as medication and fluid management. Doctors can also improve the accuracy of diagnosis and the appropriateness of drug prescriptions based on objective data measured periodically.

The physical discomfort experienced by patients is also expected to improve. Since there is no pressure from tightening the arm or mechanical noise, the sleep disturbance issues caused by conventional cuff-type blood pressure monitors can be reduced. In addition, measurement is possible without any separate restrictions even when the patient is moving or active within the hospital, allowing for the easy collection of 24-hour blood pressure fluctuation data.

“Cart On improves the efficiency of managing hypertensive patients in wards through clinically proven technology,” said Jack Byunghwan Lee, CEO of Sky Labs (skylabs.io). “We will continue to advance vital signal monitoring technologies, including blood pressure, to contribute to the establishment of a smart ward environment that simultaneously enhances work efficiency for medical staff and convenience for patients.”

Founded in 2015, Sky Labs is a healthcare company that develops and operates a ring-type medical device and platform for monitoring chronic disease patients. Since the first Cart was developed in 2020 for atrial fibrillation monitoring using cardiac signals from optical sensors, the company has expanded its capabilities. In 2023, Sky Labs received medical device approval for Cart BP Pro. Last year, the company launched Cart BP.