Sensing, Virtualization, and data analytics technologies have made a huge impact on every industry including healthcare. Internet connectivity of the wireless sensors (IoT) does provide mobility to patients and continuous real-time diagnosing ability. Currently, the sensing technology is available for medical conditions ranging from critical to non-critical categories. But still, remote health monitoring is yet to become a routine reality due to over-reliance on physical visits and the expense of those services. Certain ongoing diagnosing activities are done through this technique but still, there is plenty of scope for expanding usage in a few other use cases. Here, I would like to discuss the potential usage of technology for non-critical conditions to reduce the burden on the overloaded healthcare system due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the discussion is around use cases associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Concept of Remote Health Monitoring using Wearable Technologies
In a typical remote health monitoring setup, following pieces of the technology are used:
· Body Wearable (IoT) sensors
· A handheld computing gadget (mobile phone or a tablet computer)
· Remotely located (cloud based) application server accessible through internet (mobile or Wi-Fi) communication
These wearable sensors can acquire human body parameter data and send to the remotely located server (say on the cloud) where they are analysed for criticality and a possible response through medical experts. I have written a few research articles on this topic in the past and also worked in the industry for some time. In my opinion, this pandemic crisis requires an assistive technology to reduce the burden on the strained healthcare system and to decrease the transmission-rate by isolating the suspected and infected patients. Though this requires a thorough investigation from cyber security and patient safety perspectives.
5 Use Cases Specific to COVID-19
LifeSignals has released BioSensor patch for highly scalable remote monitoring of patients. This is a single-use (may last up to 5 days) wireless sensing patch which can be used in hospitals, quarantine, and home environments. LifeSignals also provide an app on your mobile phone for allowing internet communication of these sensors. The BioSensor monitors changes in breathing patterns, body-temperature, SpO2 and can trigger alerts for advising a quick intervention. This technology has already been trialed for 20,000 users in the year 2019.
VivaLNK has provided a portable sensing solution for continuously monitoring the patient’s temperature. The advantage of this solution is to avoid continuous physical interaction between a caregiver and affected patient. This provision reduces the chances of transmission of the disease from a patient to their caregiver. This solution was validated at the Shanghai Public Health Clinic Center (SPHCC) to prove its feasibility. Though the actual qualitative and quantitative results of these trails are not known, still it looks to be a promising work because this technology was later deployed to seven more hospitals in China.
Masimo SafetyNet™ is an effort by Masimo and University Hospitals for remote patient monitoring using tetherless pulse oximetry. Using this app, the patients can be monitored at their home using sensors, mobile app and a CareProgram provided by Masimo. Twice every day the CareProgram can ask important health questions on breathing and body temperature to convey patient’s responses to clinicians. Thus, a combination of wearable sensing and the patient’s responses to the CareProgram can develop an event to assist further. Piloting of this program may be in progress and soon it may be available to the public.
Centrak provides a patient, staff, and equipment tracking technology which can be very useful during this need of time. If an infected patient is tagged with technology and confined at their home with remote health monitoring support systems, then it will be very easy to monitor their movements to predict any potential spread. This feature allows tracing the patient’s interactions with other people and facility equipment when in a hospital. Having the location monitoring at help, it is also possible to monitor their hygiene practices to reduce spread by negligence.
Sargas International is providing remote assistance to COVID-19 infected patients using wearable devices, mobile phones, telehealth physicians and internet connectivity (for uploading data on a remote server). The wearables include a combination of Pulse Oximeter (provided by this vendor), blood pressure monitor and generic wearables (Apple Watch, Fit bit, etc.) The monitoring process involves a continuous recording of the health parameters either through the mobile phone or by making phone calls to the patient under observation and then directing sensitive cases to the emergency departments. This online platform will be made available to all hospitals for COVID-19 patients which will help to reduce their physical visits to healthcare facilities.
Final Thoughts
A massive effort is in progress from all the motivated technologists to assist the medical professionals and society for reducing the burden on the current healthcare system. These are five of the easily available examples to create awareness on the technological developments in remote monitoring uses cases. Many technology giants like Bosch, Siemens, Microsoft, Phillips etc may already have started their journey to the cause. In any scenarios, success will depend on use of proper clinical grade devices, medical consultancy, outlined safety procedures and maintaining Cybersecurity since massive and ad-hoc usage may pave ways for the security breaches.