There's an App for That

Check your blood pressure on a smartphone? The impact could be vast.

January 14, 2021

How often do you check your blood pressure? Only when you go to a doctor’s appointment? That’s true for most people, but thanks to Ramakrishna Mukkamala, who was a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering honored with the 2019 Innovation of the Year award, you can check your blood pressure on a smartphone. Mukkamala, who is now a professor in the bioengineering department at the University of Pittsburgh, said he could not have pulled off the work without MSU’s Innovation Center. Mukkamala and his team not only received aid for research funding, patents, licensing and commercialization, but he also said that the personal investment the Innovation Center had in his work was its most significant contribution.

The investment paid off: according to Mukkamala and his team’s data, the smartphone blood pressure measurement devices could significantly reduce the 45% of people in developed countries who have high blood pressure, but are not aware of it. And the same goes for the 55% of hypertensives not aware of it in developing countries, in which smartphone use is growing.

Author: Liam Boylan-Pett