Digitalizing medical and hygiene wearables 

Case study: Increasing surgery rates and patient comfort at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
 

Waiting lists for surgery appointments tend to be very long, and that’s no different in the urology department of Berlin’s renowned Charité hospital. The clinical director of the urology department, Prof. Dr. med. Thorsten Schlomm, decided to team up with Henkel to try out a new approach to post-operative care by remotely monitoring the patients’ vital parameters. The central research question is: Would this new approach make it possible to free up beds for new surgery cases by sending patients home after two to three days rather than the usual six without compromising on patient care?

In a pre-study phase, starting in late 2023, patients measured body parameters under the surveillance of the clinical staff. Equipped with the necessary devices, they measured blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation and electrocardiogram ‏(ECG) in the hospital. The data were then transferred to the urology team. The goal of this pre-study pilot was the evaluation of the right device for this purpose as well as the observations of patients handling this new way of vital parameter monitoring.

Preliminary data were very promising so the actual clinical study with our partners Byteflies ‏(monitoring devices) and Samedi ‏(telecommunication platform between doctors and patients) started in 2024. Final results are expected later in the year.

Henkel supports the clinical study as a knowledgeable industry partner and independent orchestrator. In cooperation with the digital department of Charité, Henkel explores additional solutions for the future. The goal is to multiply the learnings to other hospitals and establish further medical wearable use cases on a larger scale, bringing the right solutions from our ecosystems to various health-care facilities. The project runs under the “Healthbridge Program” and is a joint effort of different areas from our Adhesive Technologies business. 

Driving innovations in smart global healthcare 

Our printed electronics team supports Henkel’s innovation dynamics by reinventing printed electronics to pioneer new solutions and by using entrepreneurship to help our customers make their innovations a marketable success. To do that, we think beyond the classical paths of adhesives and functional materials and build partner ecosystems that create new business models.

Together with our medical counterparts in the business units, we liaise with universities, research institutes and startups to develop adhesives with even more skin-friendliness or to make wearables with even higher precision when measuring vital body parameters. Together, we cooperate with partner companies to turn ideas into prototypes. Large-scale production of the medical devices is then carried out by manufacturers with long-standing experience and certification in the medical market. At the end of the value chain, together with our new business team we pioneer and support a clinical study to provide scientific proof of the benefits that the game-changing devices can bring.  

In the area of printed electronics, we advance Henkel’s leadership-through-innovation ambition by pioneering all along the value chain, from materials and components to solution packages and new business models.

What is inside a smart health patch?

Healthcare market thrives on collaboration and expertise

“Evolve or die”, this old business wisdom is as valid as ever. Our new business team is up to the challenge. Their approach follows the design thinking method: What kind of problem in the market do we want to solve? What is the next best item we can integrate into an existing solution to help our customer solve a problem in the market? Where do we see a problem that doctors, nurses, or medical technology have not been able to solve?  

We find innovative approaches among the avant-garde of digital know-how: among startups or at tech events. Our new business teams check out their hardware-driven technologies to find out what the latest generation of sensors can do. Examples for new developments are materials for sensors that can improve wear-time, are more flexible and provide better wear comfort for the patient. Other innovations include electrodes for newborns, or sensor materials for non-invasive glucose measurements. We also scout consumer electronics trends, for they tend to lead the way. After all: if consumer electronics create a fun factor with sensors, the technology might also be used for the medical field.  

And finally: software-driven innovations. What can AI do to support a solution? How can we tap big data? These neighboring fields are another source of inspiration to develop new use cases: from wound healing to even smarter skin patches for hospitals.

Printed electronics is an exciting new field, a blue ocean with plenty of opportunities for enterprising players. We have the openness, the founder spirit and the backing of our organization to go for this new horizon. And we are proud of what we are doing, because at the end of the day it might improve the lives of many. 

_{¹ National Library of Medicine | Journal article: The efficacy of detecting arrhythmia is higher with 7‐day continuous electrocardiographic patch monitoring than with 24‐h Holter monitoring}

_{² P&S Intelligence | Report: Disposable medical sensors market size & share analysis – Global growth and demand forecast to 2030} 

_{³ Emarketer | Article: The technology, devices, and benefits of remote patient monitoring in the healthcare industry}