Wellvii innovates tomorrow’s health management on a Windows 11 Pro and Azure foundation

Setting the scene for a transformation of medical care

Wellvii provides both the devices and the secure connectivity to enable individuals to monitor and manage their health and wellbeing by conveniently gathering information at home. CEO Mark Khachaturian explains, “We are a global medical device company offering the only device that helps people monitor their vital signs. We can transmit the data to any electronic health record and electronic medical record in the world. We accomplish this by means of a connected technology platform on the Microsoft Azure cloud and with Windows 11 Pro as the operating system for our development environment and operations.”

Maybe the most widely adopted Wellvii device is VitalDetect, which recently won Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for non-invasive blood pressure measurement. Replacing the commonly used arm cuff, VitalDetect gathers nine values from a person’s finger in less than two minutes. In addition to blood pressure, it records pulse rate, temperature, and several wellness parameters like blood oxygen and heart rate variability. With the Wellvii app, people can assess and manage their health and fitness through summary scores based on data analytics and AI.

Until Khachaturian spearheaded a drive toward greater security and efficiency, Wellvii maintained a complex, heterogeneous technology environment. The company used seven different configurations for desktop and laptop computers and operated a datacenter with multiple computing and storage platforms. Maintaining cybersecurity for each kind of technology and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards like ISO 13485 for medical devices, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in European countries was a costly and laborious effort. In 2021, the company standardized on Windows 11 Pro, Azure, Microsoft 365, and SharePoint.

Uncompromised security for sensitive data and intellectual property

Cybersecurity is business-critical for Wellvii. It’s one main reason that the company provides employees and contributors worldwide with devices running on Windows 11 Pro to access the cloud. “I can now manage every user securely and efficiently through the Microsoft 365 admin center and Microsoft Entra ID,” Khachaturian says. “On Windows 11 Pro, our developers, engineers, and other team members have multifactor authentication to keep data and devices secure. Every computer has a fingerprint reader, and we use the camera for facial recognition. Microsoft Defender provides another layer of security against malware, viruses, and other threats. We maintain the integrity of our private passkeys by storing them safely in Azure.”

Technology and data managers are constantly attentive to the Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management dashboard and the monitoring dashboard that is part of the Azure Security Center. The Microsoft Defender SmartScreen protects team members against phishing, malware, and other threats hiding in online resources. Khachaturian states, “After we deployed Microsoft Defender on our devices, we experienced an 80 percent reduction in threat alerts.”

Wellvii’s organizational customers can verify the security of sensitive data for themselves. “People trust Microsoft,” Khachaturian notes. “When customers’ IT departments see how we use the Microsoft solutions, they already have confidence in what we do. As each customer must audit our data management and protection measures, we can demonstrate cohesive, stringent cybersecurity built on Windows 11 Pro, Microsoft Entra ID, and Microsoft 365. That makes it a lot easier to do business with them.”

Wellvii offers its solutions for Android and iOS in addition to Windows. That’s why the company is planning to work with CDI, a specialized security consulting firm, to integrate Arctic Wolf security software with its Windows environment to safeguard systems and applications running on these other platforms.

Conversational AI helps people understand and manage their wellbeing

AI is coming to the Wellvii app thanks to Microsoft Copilot in Windows, replacing a clickable “learn more” button that was rarely used. Industry studies show that individuals are inclined to ask a chatbot-like function sensitive and potentially consequential, as well as merely educational, questions at a much higher probability than in conversation with their care providers. Powered by the large language models that fuel Copilot in Windows, a customizable avatar in the Wellvii app will offer conversational, confidential responses to users’ inquiries. “Copilot in Windows is extremely accurate and valuable in giving general, useful information,” Khachaturian says. “Many people prefer not to make their care provider assume that they have a certain problem or need. Wellvii device users will be able to ask any question they like in full privacy without fearing that they will be judged or rushed to the next step. In addition, Wellvii software engineers use Copilot for code reviews, thereby reducing code review time by 15 percent.”

Wellvii is exploring the opportunity of allowing individuals to permit their AI-enabled Wellvii app interactions to be shared with their healthcare providers. Even in a remote setting, important information could quickly be in the hands of medical professionals. “Given the low latency and rapid transmission speed of Azure, it only takes a few seconds to furnish caregivers with practically real-time information,” Khachaturian points out.

Achieving compliance as a matter of course

Whenever Wellvii creates or updates a medical device, it maintains a design history file to document development and testing. The FDA and comparable institutions in other countries audit design history files to verify the regulatory compliance of devices before allowing them to be sold in their markets. Creating and managing these design history files on a foundation of Windows 11 Pro, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint is no longer as challenging and error-prone as it used to be. Integration with DocuSign software enables secure, electronic document sign-offs by team members around the globe. 

Khachaturian says, “We use Teams and SharePoint to collaborate around design history files on our Windows 11 Pro devices. Collaborators such as regulatory engineers or mechanical and electrical specialists can edit the same document concurrently. We ensure regulatory compliance of design history files through our standard Microsoft subscription, not by implementing another software tool. Accomplishing the same outcome with specialized third-party solutions would be several times as expensive.”

Strategic advantages of a trusted global cloud platform

Wellvii relies on Azure to transmit device data to caregivers and perform the analytics, which users can access through their scores in the Wellvii app. The company realizes several important benefits of using the Azure cloud infrastructure. “As part of GDPR, European countries demand that data associated with users in their regions travel through datacenters in Europe,” Khachaturian explains. “Azure is a global cloud platform with a vast network of data centers. That allows us to route data through a regional Azure instance and maintain compliance with the privacy and data management regulations and standards in individual countries. Compared to other choices, Azure gives us the greatest flexibility with extremely fast data transmission and very low latency.”

Azure is also advantageous when it comes to recruiting developer talent for Wellvii. “Because so many professionals have Azure skills, we no longer have to hire the more specialized software engineers we needed for our previous cloud solution,” Khachaturian adds. “That way, we can avoid staffing constraints that resulted in longer development cycles and higher costs.”

Highly economical and always current technology

Following its transition to Microsoft technologies, Wellvii realized significant cost benefits in addition to more connected, secure, and streamlined operations. “Microsoft has an evolutionary roadmap of continuous improvement for its solutions, and we receive many new features and enhancements, including security updates, within our subscription at no extra charges,” Khachaturian describes. “I don’t think people properly understand the cost savings and enhanced security you can gain with an integrated solution from Microsoft.”

The cloud economies of the Microsoft platform are highly advantageous for the company. “We accomplished a cost reduction of over 50 percent by standardizing on Microsoft 365, Azure, Teams, and SharePoint on the Azure cloud,” Khachaturian points out. “Microsoft subscription costs are extremely reasonable. We pay almost as much for a CRM system from another software vendor as what our expenses are for the entire Microsoft Cloud portfolio. We also know that we have to pay four times as much for a developer working on that cloud CRM solution than what we pay for development skills on Azure.”

Following the implementation of a unified Microsoft technology environment, the need for IT support declined. Once common, data transmission problems or file syncing issues across diverse storage systems no longer perplex users. Khachaturian notes, “We went from an average of two help desk tickets per employee per month to just one ticket every two-and-a-half months, a reduction of 80 percent. We no longer experience many concerns whose resolution can require hours of people’s time and cost us thousands of dollars.”

Empowering the internal IT team

Wellvii realized additional cost efficiencies because it no longer relies on contractors to help run its technology. On a seamless, homogeneous technology foundation with regular updates and enhancements, the internal IT team can handle all management tasks and evolve systems as the company grows. “Streamlined device and security management in a coherent, integrated environment has greatly reduced the workload of our IT team,” Khachaturian says. “With centralized administration and dashboards, their work has become so much easier. Many expensive and time-consuming issue resolutions are simply not needed anymore. They can focus more on more critical tasks, for example, iterating key integration points and APIs where we need to augment our security.”

The Microsoft FastTrack App Assure program helps Wellvii keep applications running smoothly through software updates and hardware refreshes without IT intervention. “The backward compatibility of Windows 11 Pro is strategic for us,” notes Khachaturian. Once the company verifies that Windows Autopilot meets all compliance and security criteria, IT will use Autopilot to provision users and manage their devices in an even more streamlined manner.

Faster, simpler global collaborations

Wellvii team members, most of whom are in North America and Europe, work with strategic partners in China, India, Israel, and Latin America on product development and engineering. Virtual collaborations will greatly increase as Wellvii acquires more and larger customers worldwide and achieves scalability by engaging with compliance, development, manufacturing, and logistics partners. Collaborative activities of far-flung contributors have become more agile and effective with Microsoft technologies.

Discussing a typical scenario, Khachaturian describes, “A group of software developers and engineers uses their Windows 11 Pro devices to meet in Teams. On SharePoint, they open the same version of an Excel spreadsheet to track issues to do with designing a circuit board for a new device. They review and edit entries in real time and mark them for follow-up. When I open the tracking file the next day, I quickly review progress and either call an activity complete or flag it for additional attention. It’s extremely efficient to work this way, although it’s difficult to quantify the cost difference. You would have to assess how many hours you previously wasted because of inefficient, slow communications. But there’s no doubt that we’ve eliminated a large expense.”

Next-generation health management devices are coming

Wellvii will extend its 59 US patents across the globe by invoking Patent Cooperation Treaty protections while it continues to innovate. The company will rely on evolving AI technology to process and analyze more data in the cloud and garner more strategic customer accounts. Devices will feature cellular chips and antennas to enable uninterrupted connectivity and data transmission across various provider networks. Wellvii products will become smaller while their capabilities expand. Soon, the company’s devices will collect data to enable the tracking of conditions like atrial fibrillation or facilitate electrocardiograms. “We plan on constant evolution and the miniaturization of our products while maintaining accuracy,” Khachaturian notes in closing. “With Windows 11 Pro and Azure, we will always be able to deliver medical-grade solutions that are capable of lightning-fast and highly secure data transmission.”