Tracking health wirelessly

Doctors say it spells relief from invasive and inaccurate readings

February 18, 2018 12:02 am | Updated 12:02 am IST

 

For three months now, Chennai-based Rajan Eye Care Hospital has been using VinCense (a non-invasive mechanism that can monitor key health parameters) in its community screening programmes.

“I have been using it for over six months. We can check a patient’s blood pressure and, with the addition of a glucometer, record his blood sugar level too. We have used it in more than 500 to 600 patients so far,” says Dr. Mohan Rajan, Medical Director at the hospital.

Non-invasive

VinCense can be clipped to the wearer’s finger and connected to a wearable devvice, such as a wrist watch, using a wire. The pulse and respiratory rates, skin temperature and oxygen saturation are recorded. The readings are sent via Bluetooth to a mobile app, and stored on cloud-based servers. The equipment has been in use for the past year in select private hospitals in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Doctors who have used it say it spells relief from invasive and inaccurate readings that crop up when lab technicians monitor these parameters.

A year ago, the emergency medicine department at M.S. Ramaiah Hospital, Bengaluru came forward (through its hospital outreach programme called Heart Rescue India) to test the equipment. Later, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT M) joined in and developed algorithms for the equipment that can be employed in broader public health programmes and screen for more vital parameters. Currently, third party devices are incorporated into the platform.

“The challenge was in developing an algorithm for testing glucose level. In another three or four months we will incorporate measurement of cardiac output and haemoglobin level,” says M. Manivannan, Head, Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT M, whose team wrote the algorithm.

MedIoTek Health Systems developed the hardware for VinCense. The firm’s Managing Director, Sharmila Devadoss, says the idea of making health care affordable came from watching her father, an orthopaedic surgeon in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. “We could see the gaps in health care which was a motivating factor,” she says.

“We used it in our outreach programme. Apart from other parameters, we would like to add height also. As per World Health Organisation criteria we classify patients as low, moderate and high risk. The measurements are transferred through Bluetooth so there is no tampering with data. We are also able to give a printout to those who are being screened,” says Dr. Aruna C. Ramesh, Pogramme Director, Heart Rescue India.

Looking ahead

Prof. Manivannan says the collaboration would lead to “algorithms for medical simulation [being] applied to wireless health monitoring systems. The outcome of this collaboration could lead to early intervention, reducing risks and complications and improving clinical outcomes.”

Going ahead, the equipment will help monitor patients in post-operative care, who usually need more attention. It can also be used in a rehabilitation setting to step down care,(for patients in the intensive care unit) identify vulnerable patients, track newly-discharged ones and also patients in an ambulance.

sujatha.r@thehindu.co.in

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