German medical equipment company SECA launched its first portable body composition scanner designed for primary care settings on Thursday. The product, called Alpha, attempts to give primary care providers a more accurate understanding of the patient’s health.
During the annual exam, doctors usually check the patient’s weight, height, and vitality. However, they have long used outdated body composition measurements, such as body mass index (BMI), a tool that many healthcare leaders criticized as a misleading and racial biased tool for analyzing patients’ health.
“As a result, providers are unable to monitor and mark health measures, e.g.
Nina Crowley, director of clinical education and partnerships at SECA, explained signs of excessive obesity, age-related muscle decline, and overall effects of drugs such as GLP-1, such as GLP-1.
SECA addresses this gap by introducing body composition screening into primary care visits.
Alpha scanners use a method called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). The scanner passes low-level current through the body, as different tissues such as fat, muscle and water perform electricity in different ways. By measuring the resistance to that current, SECA’s device calculates key components of human components, including fat mass, muscle mass and hydration levels, Crowley explained.
She added that the scan takes only 24 seconds to provide.
Equipped with this data, primary care providers can have more meaningful discussions
Crowley said about patients’ health goals, treatment choices and lifestyle changes. She also noted that human component scans may lead to earlier interventions in diseases such as carnivoresis, obesity and metabolic diseases.
Crowley said SECA’s competitors in the clinical-grade BIA space include Inbody, Evolt, Tanita and Valhalla.
She said the company distinguishes itself by providing “the most accurate body composition results” to explain patients’ age, gender and race. She also emphasized the company’s integration capabilities.
“SECA’s products are designed specifically for clinical settings and are designed to be seamlessly integrated into existing workflows. This ensures that providers can easily capture, interpret and act on body composition data in the reality of busy healthcare environments,” Crowley explained.
She noted that SECA has 65% of the global market share in the medical weighing and measurement space, serving 110 different countries. Its largest health system clients in the United States include Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente and Nyu Langone Health.
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