Flosonics, a Canadian company part of NATO DIANA’s 2025 cohort of innovators, is revolutionising the way physicians monitor blood flow, in clinical settings and on the battlefield.
By using a wireless, wearable ultrasound device to track how well the heart is pumping blood, the FloPatch device, designed by Flosonics, can detect early signs of instability before traditional vital signs such as blood pressure or heart rate become irregular.
Haemorrhage remains the leading cause of preventable death in battlefield and civilian trauma. This is due to the difficulty of identifying patients at risk of a dangerous state called ‘compensated shock’. DIANA’s Human Health and Performance challenge identified this as a key issue for the protection and health of Allied militaries.
About 15% of trauma patients experience compensated shock, which means they enter an early stage of shock where the body suffers from lack of blood flow. While these patients often appear stable, they can quickly worsen and crash — making it very difficult to identify and fix the underlying issue before it becomes too late.
“These patients can appear stable in the early stages of shock, but may rapidly deteriorate without warning,” explained Andrew Eibl, VP Operations & Co-Founder at Flosonics. “Once that downward trajectory begins, it becomes much harder to reverse. That’s why early detection is critical — catching these patients before they decompensate allows us to intervene sooner and potentially save lives.”
“Existing tools for detecting compensated shock have limited sensitivity and often fail to identify at-risk patients in time,” said Joe Eibl, CEO and Co-Founder at Flosonics. “Whether in civilian trauma or combat injury, traditional vital signs can appear deceptively normal in the early stages of shock. This represents a critical capability gap in trauma care — and it’s one we are addressing with FloPatch,” said Joe Eibl, CEO and Co-Founder at Flosonics.
“Andrew and I started the company around ten years ago, alongside one of my college roommates at the time, who is a world-respected physiologist and Co-Founder of Flosonics, Dr Jon-Emile Kenny. Jon described the problem of measuring blood flow during compensated shock and explained he wanted to find a fast, simple way for him and his team — from nurses to paramedics — to gain fast, non-invasive access to real-time blood flow data in emergency care situations. That’s where the idea for FloPatch came from.”
By monitoring blood flow more precisely and in real time, Flosonics’ technology is now helping medical teams to spot at-risk patients, prioritising them accordingly for treatment or evacuation.
Enabling personalised medicine
Flosonics had already obtained FDA clearance for their medical device before entering the DIANA Programme. However, the team have seen a number of successes since joining Phase 1 of the programme, including seeing their device adopted by Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, along with another 20 hospitals across the US and Canada.
FloPatch was also recently added to the ECAT contract for the US Department of Defence — meaning it’s now available through an online government platform that streamlines how the military buys medical and lab supplies, an exciting milestone in the efficient adoption of dual use medical technologies.
Through these partnerships, Flosonics is supporting medical teams across both civilian and military environments in delivering individualised, data-driven resuscitation strategies during critical care interventions.
Understanding end users
Companies like Flosonics are key to driving dual-use innovation, but without a clear understanding of end users and their needs, even the best technologies risk being unfit for real-world use.
“Different branches of the military operate under vastly diverse conditions, requiring us to tailor our technology to the distinct clinical and logistical needs of each operational context. For example, the operational environments and types of patient profile you encounter in the Air Force or the Navy can be vastly different. Therefore, there is a wide range of user requirements and constraints that we need to be aware of and consider.
“So, along with the extensive networking, understanding how patients are injured and treated under operational constraints is an area where NATO DIANA has offered real, tangible benefit to our company,” said Andrew.
By helping start-ups entering the defence and security landscape grasp the operational realities of end users, DIANA is enabling the development of better fit-for-purpose solutions and fast-tracking their adoption within NATO Allied nations.
“We’ve already started collaborating with senior military personnel, engaging them as contractors and clinical advisors. Their expertise is helping us refine our technology to better meet the needs of service members in different operational contexts,” said Joe.
Looking ahead, the team at Flosonics are excited to pursue opportunities to deliver their capability into the hands of Allied end users through DIANA’s Rapid Adoption Service. This will help ensure FloPatch can be adopted in more operational settings within the Alliance — improving access to better monitoring tools when every second counts.