Vision

D-Heart is an innovative SME founded in 2015 thanks to the work of Nicolò Briante and Niccolò Maurizi, at the time two young students of the Almo Collegio Borromeo in Pavia. Maurizi, now a medical researcher in cardiology, was struck by a myocardial infarction at the age of fifteen. This event pushed him to turn his problem into an opportunity, allowing him to see the problems of patients like him with the eyes of the doctor  Thanks to the help and business expertise of his roomate Briante, together they created D-Heart, the first multiple-lead ECG device for smartphones that combines the ease of use required by the patient with the reliability of the ECG needed by the doctor.



What had limited the spread of portable ECG devices up to that point was that, in order to obtain reliable information for doctors, devices that were bulky and difficult to use had to be used. In particular, autonomous patients could not properly manage the cables, which were always ready to tangle up, and above all, they were not able to correctly position the electrodes on the chest. Thanks to its innovative and yet simple technology, D-Heart solves both these problems: the user can rewind all the cables at the same time, or extract one at a time, and in any order. The intuitive positioning of the electrodes is given by the direction of the exit cables on the device. 



In order to increase its simplicity and reliability, the D-Heart App uses an image processing technology which shows the patient's chest with the correct positioning of the electrodes. The result is the recording of an ECG as reliable as the one recorded in the doctor's office, but registered comfortably seated at home. In addition, the patient or health professional can make use of a 24/7 telecardiology service to quickly receive an ECG analyzed by our trusted cardiologists. The device is stored in its protective case with a wireless charging base. Every element of the solution, from the device, to the App, to the packaging shares and is designed according to the same D-Heart brand principles: reliability meets simplicity.

In other words, we believe that with D-Heart we are giving shape to the maximum expression of personalized medicine, through a device that allows the patient to be responsible for their own health.



In addition, by always having access to medical grade ECG data, D-Heart allows to capture a huge amount of medically relevant data for a wide variety of people. Such a vast amount of information, commonly referred to as "Big Data", opens up many possibilities in the fields of healthcare and cardiology, providing insights and information on the detailed behavior of the heart in different times and situations.

Smartphone technologies applied to health (m-Health) are revolutionizing cardiovascular medicine. However, more than 80% of heart disease-related deaths occur in developing countries, which are unable to harness these innovations to improve risk factor awareness and disease prevention. With the increase in non-communicable diseases, there is an urgent need to promote effective and accessible low-cost prevention campaigns in contexts with limited resources. While high-income countries remain at the forefront of developing the latest mobile technologies used in healthcare, the penetration rate of such technologies in low- and middle-income countries has recently surpassed that of their richer neighbors. In general, low- and middle-income countries have significant restrictions on their healthcare capabilities due to a lack of infrastructure, human resources and logistics.



Smartphone technology can overcome many of these limitations by providing easy and affordable access to accurate diagnostic and monitoring methods. In this context, the widespread availability of accurate ECG screenings would be an important step in the right direction.

D-Heart has received several awards and acknowledgments for its solution. Realities such as Vodafone Foundation (Think for Social competition March 2016), BNP Paribas Cardiff (Best Solution for healthcare insurances 2016), Berkley University (Global Social Venture Competition 2017), Italian Society of Cardiology (Best Abstract 2017), Chamber of Commerce (Top of the PID 2020), B-Heroes and Elite of Borsa Italiana have rewarded and recognized the value of D-Heart's innovation.

In 2020 D-Heart won the Compasso d'Oro award for best innovative design.