Zephyr Technology Corporation, (also known as Zephyr) is a privately owned manufacturer of advanced heart rate monitors, remote physiological monitoring and wireless

telehealth Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, mon ...

systems for remote patient monitoring. Based in

Annapolis Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and founded in 2003, Zephyr developed one of the first commercially available wearable, wireless and field-deployable Physiological Status Monitoring (PSM) systems for use in training and high stress operational environments. The company now has research and development resources in the United States, New Zealand and India, along with 31 distributors in more than 40 countries globally. Zephyr manufactures a range of consumer and professional-grade heart rate and fitness monitoring devices capable of measuring heart rate, respiration,

heart rate variability Heart rate variability (HRV) is the physiological phenomenon of variation in the time interval between heartbeats. It is measured by the variation in the beat-to-beat interval. Other terms used include: "cycle length variability", "R–R variabi ...

, activity level, and 3-axis accelerometry. Zephyr most recent product, ZephyrLIFE, is one of the first entries into the emerging home

and remote patient monitoring market.

History

In 2003, Zephyr was founded in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

to help develop remote monitoring technologies to address the needs of coaches and athletes in their training. Zephyr's engineers learned early on that there were particular challenges that such systems faced - many of which were the same as those faced by first responders and

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

personnel. Early and ongoing collaboration with fire departments,

NASA Ames The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

Research Center, National Guard Civil Support Teams, and multiple U.S. Special Forces units have allow Zephyr to develop its BioHarness and OmniSense software, which are capable of monitoring up to 50 test subjects at ranges of up to 1000 ft. In 2010, Zephyr's BioHarness and OmniSense system were used to remotely monitor the health and medical status of miners trapped during the

2010 Copiapó mining accident The 2010 Copiapó mining accident, also known then as the "Chilean mining accident", began on 5 August 2010, with a cave-in at the San José copper–gold mine, located in the Atacama Desert north of the regional capital of Copiapó, in nort ...

near

Copiapó Copiapó () is a city and commune in northern Chile, located about 65 kilometers east of the coastal town of Caldera. Founded on December 8, 1744, it is the capital of Copiapó Province and Atacama Region. Copiapó lies about 800 km north ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. In 2011,

Under Armour Under Armour, Inc. is an American sports equipment company that manufactures footwear, sports and casual apparel. Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices located in Amsterdam (European hea ...

partnered with Zephyr to monitor athletes during the 2011

NFL Scouting Combine The NFL Scouting Combine is a week-long showcase occurring every February at Lucas Oil Stadium (and formerly at the RCA Dome until 2008) in Indianapolis, where college football players perform physical and mental tests in front of National Footb ...

. In 2012, Zephyr testified to

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

on behalf of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

see references below In 2013, Zephyr has partnered with organizations including

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

, the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divi ...

, and 3M to develop and launch ZephyrLIFE - one of the first commercially available comprehensive remote patient monitoring systems for general care monitoring. In 2014, Covidien ( ex Tyco Health) purchased Zephyr. Zephyr has continued to sell products in its three areas of consumer, Pro Sports, Defense and Healthcare. In Feb 2015, Medtronic (ticker MDT) purchased Covidien forming the largest medical device company in the world.

References

General references

* * * * {{cite news , url=http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/tmj.2014.0093, title=Panasonic Program Evaluation of Remote Heart Failure Monitoring: Healthcare Utilization Analysis in a Rural Regional Medical Center, date=July 15, 2014 , doi=10.1089/tmj.2014.0093, access-date=March 21, 2013

External links

Zephyr Corporate site
Health care companies established in 2003 Annapolis, Maryland Medical technology companies of the United States Activity trackers Health care companies based in Maryland