(CBS4) – Dr. Matthew Salzberg made some recommendations during the holidays a few hours after receiving the vaccine against COVID-19.
“Just a little sore arm, but nothing bigger than us, you’re getting a regular flu shot,” he told CBS4.
Dr. Salzberg frequently helps COVID patients as medical director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Aurora UCHealth Hospital. He now helps in another way, but carries a device to track his reactions after vaccination.
“It’s a pretty cool technology,” he explained as he unveiled a “BioButton” produced by a Golden-based company, Biointellisense.
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It communicates via Bluetooth with your smartphone and an application tells you how things are going, in addition to the company monitoring it.
“You receive a report from the company every couple of hours that tells you what your vitals have been doing over the last few hours.”
The device attached to the chest and chest of Dr. Richard Zane, head of innovation at UCHealth and head of emergency services at UCHealth Hospital, measures and transmits data on heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate and a certain degree of movement.
“There are backward reactions that we don’t know about,” Dr. Zane said. “It’s a new vaccine and it seems extremely safe according to data from clinical trials … we want to be careful especially in that population of elderly and fragile patients. So what we’re looking for in this patient population is the feeling of deterioration. So “There is any hint of fever. It increases any sensation of respiratory rate, increases the sensation of dust and what that means along with a combination of movement.”
It is possible that the devices will not only detect small signs of complications with the vaccine, but also the virus infection.
A total of 100 people get the devices along with their photos. They get them a day before each of the two shots and then take them a week later.
“What we can also do is use an algorithm to be able to differentiate between what could be a side effect of the vaccine and what could be an active COVID infection.”
“We can watch him and look at him and make sure he’s okay,” Dr. Salzberg explained. “There are people who control it remotely, so these apps can alert you and they can contact you as well.”
This would be in the case of some dangerous-looking data. You can call people to get medical attention or even to send an ambulance.
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Dr. Salzberg checked the data a few hours after his shot.
“In the first four hours after my shot, I didn’t change,” he said.
“It simply came to our notice then. It’s too early, “said Dr. Zane.
But they will collect data and use it to better manage the virus and warn of any reaction to the vaccine.
“They could develop vaccine complications that could be interpreted as COVID and they could develop COVID that could be interpreted as vaccine complications and we can differentiate the two.”
Devices are truly a future in healthcare. Hospitals and other health centers can use them to track people with various diseases.
“We are much wider. We are thinking of patients with diabetes that is difficult to control, heart failure, heart disease, hypertension, kidney disease, ”said Dr. Zane.
Patients leaving the hospital with COVID sometimes have to return as symptoms decrease and increase. Putting BioButtons or similar devices in it can help hospitals intervene when they have problems.
Dr. Zane also sees another use.
“Let’s imagine that people in qualified nursing centers will wear a device like this all the time, let alone after the vaccine.”