Using radar to check heart failure

The same technology which helps the military see through rubble could help keep heart failure patients out of the hospital.

Ohio State University is among 30 centers testing a vest which uses radar to see through the chest, and track the amount of fluid in the lungs.

That's a problem which often puts patients in the hospital.

Patients put on the vest and connect to a tablet once a day.

After a 90-second reading, the device sends the results to a cardiologist.

"The goal here is to see when the lungs are trending towards being too wet, to make adjustments in the medication on an outpatient basis," Dr. William Abraham said.

In a small study, the vest cut heart failure re-admissions by 87 percent in the first three months of use.

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