How the Empatica Health Monitoring Platform can enhance your research studies

The Empatica Health Monitoring Platform, so far only available for use in large-scale decentralized and hybrid clinical trials, is finally available for smaller-scale longitudinal and academic studies. Our Platform is a full-stack, versatile data collection tool that can fit your academic, longitudinal, in-lab, or real-world study needs, giving you direct access to all the data you need, in the format you need it in, from one powerful device.

With the Professional plan, you can purchase access to all the key features of the Empatica Health Monitoring platform, such as remote study setup and management, unlimited raw data and digital biomarkers from a smaller number of EmbracePlus devices (as few as just one), and data visualization through the Care Portal. With the Professional plan you can also benefit from academic discounts so you can meet your research goals without breaking your budget.

This article explains how various powerful features of the Empatica Health Monitoring Platform can be used for your research studies, no matter the context.

Use the only medical smartwatch in the world that combines EDA and PPG sensors

Why use multiple wearables when you can get all the data you need from one?

Following the sunsetting of our beloved E4, which has helped thousands of researchers publish their papers, the CE-certified EmbracePlus is now the only wrist-worn wearable that offers simultaneous data collection from your participants from a 4-channel Photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor and a Ventral Electrodermal Activity (EDA) sensor. This opens up your study capabilities to investigate cardiac and respiratory activity and autonomic nervous system activity simultaneously, from multiple participants.

Pair the PPG and EDA sensors, with a 64 Hz frequency accelerometer and skin thermometer, and you have the ultimate medical wearable ready to use in your work.

EmbracePlus is also waterproof, and comes with an E Ink display that shows the time and can be used for troubleshooting, enhanced battery life, and mechanical side buttons for tagging events.

Access truly raw data, paired with clinically validated and research-grade digital biomarkers

Empatica was founded by researchers, and one of our biggest goals has always been to provide accurate, high-quality raw data to other scientists for their work. We know black box algorithms can get in the way of your study, so with the Empatica Health Monitoring Platform you can access unprocessed raw data directly from EmbracePlus: Accelerometer, Temperature, Electrodermal Activity, Steps, Blood Volume Pulse, IBI (Systolic peaks) and User Tags.

In addition to the raw data, the Professional plan for the Empatica Health Monitoring Platform allows you to use Empatica’s digital biomarkers to monitor pulse rate, pulse rate variability, respiratory rate, activity counts, steps, Skin Conductance Level (SCL), temperature, and participant wearing time, so you can check compliance and intervene if you see any issues with the data collection.

All collected data is streamed directly and automatically to the GDPR and HIPAA-compliant Empatica Cloud with the help of the Care Lab app. From there, you can securely download it using data access keys and process it either as CSV or Avro files.

Collect data from the real world without having to leave your office

If your study is investigating physiological changes and responses to real-world interactions and environmental stimuli, the Empatica Health Monitoring Platform is an ideal suite for optimal remote data collection.

Data collection and streaming can happen from anywhere, as long your participant’s phone can connect to the internet. The EmbracePlus continuously streams data to the Care Lab app via Bluetooth and the app uploads this data to your Care Portal via the Empatica Cloud. All data is timestamped and streamed continuously and wirelessly to the Care Portal. From there, you can visualize each participant’s data across time in graphs, or download it for further analysis.

Maximize data collection

The environment was designed to minimize data loss. In fact, the EmbracePlus can store up to 36 hours of data on its onboard memory, so data collection can continue even if your participants don’t always have their phones nearby or connected to EmbracePlus. If instead there is no immediately available internet connection for the collected data to be uploaded to the Portal, the Care Lab app stores the data on the phone until it reconnects to the internet.

The Empatica Health Monitoring Platform also offers a digital biomarker that allows you to keep track of participant wearing time, so you know who is not using their EmbracePlus properly and can intervene in a timely manner.

Record multiple in-lab sessions from different participants through a single EmbracePlus

We know one of the favorite E4 features for academic researchers was the ability to record short-term sessions in a lab, usually under one hour, from multiple subjects. The data would be available immediately, and with the help of timestamping, the analysis and distinction between subjects were quick and easy. The same capability is also available with the Empatica Health Monitoring Platform, allowing you to record multiple sessions across participants from a single EmbracePlus device.

Easily set up and run your longitudinal studies

With the Empatica Health Monitoring Platform, you can easily set up your study through the Care Portal, and remotely stream data across time from the EmbracePlus sensors.

At the same time, study setup through the Portal is easy. Once you have created your own account, you can start creating participant credentials with the click of a button. The credentials can be digitally sent to your participants, who can log in and start collecting data as soon as they have their EmbracePlus on their wrists.

Each participant will use their own unique, and de-identified login credentials that you have just sent to log into the Care Lab app (the app itself is free to download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store). Once they’re set up, data collection and streaming start immediately, and they are a breeze. Once your data collection is complete, you can offboard participants directly from the Care Portal with a few clicks.