We give nurses SUPERPOWERS!
The project is the winner of the EUvsVirus Health & Life Domain!
The problem our project solves
There are thousands of (potentially) infected people being monitored in hospitals in non-intensive rooms. These are cases that are not severe enough to be in ICU care, but if their conditions worsens, they need to be relocated there. Nurses work around the clock to help and monitor them many times a day, but current practices have huge shortcomings.
- There is a shortage of protective gear and they are highly overused, which puts nurses at high risk after having so many close physical contact with patients.
- Just as with the equipment, there is also lack of human resource: nurses are critical to stay healthy so that staff numbers don't drop.
- Monitoring the vital signs of a patient takes about 5 minutes for a nurse, without considering the changing of gear, which amounts to a small number of people being inspected under an hour.
- The measured data rarely entered and stored online, which limits any further analysis to be made.
What we bring to the table
We give nurses superpowers, by doing a 100 check-ups in the time that it used to take 1. All while being far from the patient, staying out of risk.
Our solution enables a highly scalable patient monitoring system that minimizes physical contact between nurses and patients, which also leads to smaller shortage of protective gear. Instead of occasional visits, our device measures vital parameters real-time and uploads each patient’s data into a central server. With the help of our dashboard, doctors and nurses can oversee hundred times more patients, while our automatic alert functionalities make it possible to diagnose deteriorating cases instantly and to reach quicker reaction times.
In the span of 48 hours, we have created a fully-functional pair of 3D printed glasses, allowing patients to initiate frequent measuring of their vital signs, all by themselves. These include body temperature, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate, the key values nurses regularly check on coronavirus patients.
We have bought the sensors ourselves and designed the 3D printed glasses frame to blend them into one device. This fast-prototyping only cost us 21€, and mass production would lower the cost of a device even more.
What we have done during the weekend
We have improved our 3D printed prototype, that we have created on another weekend. We had to re-assemble the sensors and performed benchmark tests to measure the accuracy of our sensors. We have consulted with multiple medical professionals on top of the ones we have already talked to earlier and were able to come up with better infrastructure for our solution. We also focused more this time on the supporting services such as the dashboard, which we have designed from scratch, along with our pitch video.
Our solution’s impact to the crisis
Our medical device enriched with our data analysis system is designed without the need for any specific infrastructural requirement, which allows universal usage in any country. Furthermore, hospitals, regions or even countries can collaborate and share their data to find global patterns, which opens doors for new innovations to fight the virus together. Our modular sensor design and 3D printed case allows fast mass-production and short implementation time. From the medical view, we are keeping the medical staff in a safe distance to protect them from highly infective patients. With our real-time, large-scale monitoring, nurses and doctors can filter out and deal with most pressing cases while our system keeps an eye on every other patient.
We have talked with over 15 professionals, including multiple doctors, nurses, investors and manufacturers, and they were eager to hear how fast we could get this to hospitals. After further recognition and an award from EIT Health, multiple doctors reached out to us, offering their expertise and support, which gave us another huge confidence boost in the project.
The necessities in order to continue the project
For us to scale up this project, we need partners that can help us in mass manufacturing, as we lack the experience in this area. For the manufacturing, we would need a large quantity of sensors ,injection-molding and assembling facilities. For fast delivery of the device, we also need the cooperation of hospitals, doctors and nurses to help us in testing. Their feedback is invaluable for the success and impact of our product.
The value of our solution after the crisis
Although the parameters measured by our medical device are the most informative values for COVID-19 infected people, body temperature, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate are key indicators for illnesses under normal circumstances as well. Therefore, our wearable makes everyday routine check-ups faster even in normal situations.
Another key change would be digitalization. Many hospitals still don’t have a centralized medical system and database, while our solution could start a new wave of data analysis and speed-up innovative activities in the health industry.
The available data and its analysis can also boost cross-European collaboration by sharing trends and new findings between countries, leading to more efficient and smarter future detection measures.
Team
We have multiple years of experience in hackathons and real life projects. Our team combines a multi-disciplinary knowledge of full-stack development, machine learning, design and business development. We are double-degree EIT Digital students at top universities, including KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Aalto University, Technical University of Eindhoven and Technical University of Berlin.
- Márton Elődi - EIT Digital MSc Student in Human-Computer Interaction Design - Several years of experience in software and product development
- Kristóf Nagy - Electrical engineer and professional motion graphics designer
- Péter Lakatos - EIT Digital MSc Student in Data Science - Experience in ML and business development
- Miklós Knébel - EIT Digital MSc Student in Autonomous Systems - Experience in robotics, deep learning and automation
- Péter Dános - EIT Digital MSc Student in Visual Computing - Expertise in 3D printing and design
- Levente Mitnyik - EIT Digital MSc Student in Embedded Systems - Vast knowledge of electrical engineering, micro-controllers and embedded systems.
Built With
- 3dprinting
- arduino
- autodesk-fusion-360
- infrared
- microphone
- pulsoximeter