HumanITcare and the EIC Accelerator: Remote Care, Now vitalera

Patients with chronic heart failure are often readmitted to hospital, and following them at home can catch problems earlier. FollowHealth, a company founded in Barcelona in 2018 and known first as HumanITcare and now as vitalera, built a remote monitoring platform that connects patients' blood pressure cuffs, scales and wearables to their hospital team, with alarms when readings go wrong.

The European Innovation Council granted €2,438,800 towards a €3.59 million project to add artificial intelligence, run clinical studies and certify the platform as a medical device. The studies were completed in Spain and Romania. The certification, a Class IIa rating under the EU Medical Device Regulation, was still in process when the project ended in June 2025, and the company has meanwhile shifted towards selling its technology as an API to other health apps.

Where vitalera Stands Today

The old HumanITcare website now carries a banner, "Ahora somos vitalera", and points to vitalera.io. There the company presents itself as a provider of APIs, SDKs and AI agents for remote monitoring, lists clients including Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Torrevieja University Hospital, Maastricht University and Harvard Medical School, and claims more than a million users. In January 2026 it announced Spain's high-level security certification, ENS Alto, and a breast cancer monitoring project with Maastricht UMC+.

Its regulatory status is less clear. In December 2024 vitalera announced it had completed "the first phase" of reclassification with the Italian notified body Ente Certificazione Macchine, positioning it to secure Class IIa certification "in the near future". The CORDIS report at project end still describes the certification as underway. Its homepage lists "MDR Class IIb" among its certifications. We found no certificate published for either class.

The Technology: Devices to Dashboard

The platform collects readings from connected medical devices and consumer wearables, including Garmin devices through a partnership the company announced, plus patient questionnaires, and presents them to clinicians with alerts. During the EIC project, according to the CORDIS report, it built first AI algorithms to prioritise patients and manage alarms. Usability scores were 80.8 for clinicians and 69.8 for patients.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The project, which ran from July 2022 to June 2025, completed two clinical studies: VAL-HIC, an interventional trial at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, and DHEART, an observational study. CORDIS reports a "47% improvement in quality of life and 23% improvement in self-care behavior". The company's own summary of VAL-HIC says the platform matched standard care for heart failure patients in improving quality of life and self-care, which is a different claim from outperforming it. ISO 27001 certification was achieved; MDR Class IIa certification was in progress.

1. Clinical validationDeliveredVAL-HIC and DHEART completed.
2. AI prioritisation and smart alarmsInitialFirst algorithms, per CORDIS.
3. MDR Class IIa certificationNot confirmedIn process at project end; no certificate published.
4. International expansionStartedUS office; Maastricht project.

What Has Happened Since the Award

The Money

The company's about page lists €360,000 in Spanish government grants in 2020 and European Commission support; the HumanITcare site cites NextGenerationEU funding through Spain's recovery plan. In its MIT Solve profile the company says that "in 2022 we received the EIC Accelerator grant and secured the investment of the EIB", and an equity-free grant from Google.org for oncology research; it gives no amounts. We found no announced venture round and no EIC Fund investment. Spanish company accounts were not accessible for this article.

Why Europe Should Care

Europe's health systems are under pressure from ageing populations and chronic disease, and remote monitoring is one way to treat more patients at home. Certification under the MDR is what allows such software to be used as a medical device, and it is the step the EIC project did not complete.

The Verdict

vitalera has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.