The overall health-monitoring bracelet that Pramuka Sooriyapatabandige developed can evaluate vital symptoms these as heart fee, pores and skin temperature, blood stress, and blood oxygen saturation. What is far more, the system must be reasonably priced to manufacture and could be built in his native country of Sri Lanka, where access to overall health treatment can be complicated. The bracelet lately received to start with area in the IEEE Telehealth Digital Pitch Levels of competition college student group.
The IEEE scholar member claims he was motivated to acquire the multipurpose well being-checking bracelet (MHMB) since noncommunicable, continual health conditions this sort of as most cancers and coronary heart condition account for 70 p.c of deaths throughout the world, and a lot more than a few-quarters of them come about in producing nations together with Sri Lanka. The South Asian place is in the midst of an economic disaster, and its overall health treatment system is having difficulties, in accordance to a U.N. report.
“When I started this exploration task, I did not have a obvious notion of the complications with overall health treatment,” suggests Sooriyapatabandige, who gained a bachelor’s diploma in electrical and electronics engineering this yr from the University of Jaffna, in Thirunelvely, Sri Lanka. “After participating in the opposition, I received access to so much material on distant wellness monitoring. I obtained to see how much function is currently being carried out, the types of exploration likely on, and the tendencies. Acquiring countries hardly make use of any of this facts, and I believe there is a large amount we can do in this industry.”
The advantages of a remote system
People with long-term circumstances these as heart condition and most cancers have their crucial signals checked routinely. But scheduling an evaluation with a medical doctor can be challenging, especially for individuals dwelling in establishing nations and other areas exactly where there’s a lack of overall health treatment gurus. Appointments can be challenging to get, and vacation to a professional medical facility can acquire a prolonged time. One resolution is to use telemedicine to check clients remotely.
Clinics make up the spine of Sri Lanka’s well being care technique. To prevent overcrowding, people today may well go to a clinic only on the day they have been assigned, Sooriyapatabandige suggests. If monitoring critical indicators could be finished remotely, he suggests, it would decrease the number of people at the amenities and no cost up the medical employees to take care of individuals with more major conditions.
“Strengthening major wellness care with a in depth, group-based mostly, and family members-focused engineering option could be the important for addressing the current overall health problems in Sri Lanka,” he claims. “Home-centered monitoring of crucial health and fitness parameters is crucial, and present systems can deal with the want.”
A cloud-primarily based system that collects real-time data
The prototype of the multipurpose wellness-monitoring bracelet (MHMB) involves sensors to measure essential indications and makes use of photoplethysmography to measure coronary heart fee. Pramuka Sooriyapatabandige
The MHMB is intended to be section of a centralized, distant checking program. The battery-driven wearable includes sensors to evaluate important symptoms. It makes use of photoplethysmography to measure coronary heart price and features the functionality to acquire single-direct measurements. The bracelet does not have a display screen and necessitates only nominal awareness from the consumer.
It price tag about US $100 to acquire the prototype, Sooriyapatabandige says.
The wearable connects to the cloud by using Wi-Fi. Health care staff members can accessibility the patient’s details from the monitoring method or from an app. Patients can down load the application on their telephone to look at the history of their readings.
“Home-based checking of critical health and fitness parameters is vital, and current technologies can address the will need.”
The bracelet also can be connected to blood force screens, glucometers, and other health care gadgets. Sooriyapatabandige claims that due to the fact the MHMB can link to the resources, the bracelet’s capabilities are not confined to only the measurements that can be built at the wrist. It also tends to make the bracelet a central node, or hub, for the distant affected individual-monitoring procedure, which presents connectivity so other gadgets can accessibility the system.
The skill to website link to the other resources is not made available by any other this kind of wearable, Sooriyapatabandige says.
The program can be made use of in mass-casualty situations, he claims, these kinds of as examining all-natural catastrophe victims’ vitals, as nicely as other predicaments in which there are important problems in scaling up clinical products and services.
Clinical trials and a attainable patent
Sooriyapatabandige didn’t develop the MHMB on his possess. He worked on the style with classmate Nilojkanth Loganathan and the project’s supervisor, Ragupathyraj Valluvan, a lecturer in electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Jaffna. Sooriyapatabandige also experienced guidance from Rajendra Surenthirakumaran , dean of the university’s medication college, and Sivasothy Shanmugalingam, founder of DotsHook, a telecommunications firm in Brittany, France.
Sooriyapatabandige and the group are now developing a edition of the bracelet for clinical trials. The college is filing a patent application with the Countrywide Intellectual Property Business of Sri Lanka.
Sooriyapatabandige suggests he plans to proceed doing the job in the biomedical area. He is searching into Ph.D. systems in embedded devices progress, mostly people similar to biomedical applications.
Seeking for improvements in telehealth
The IEEE Expectations Association (IEEE SA) held the pitch competition this calendar year to search for out telehealth improvements. The contest was overseen by the IEEE SA Health care and Life Sciences Practice and the IEEE SA Transforming the Telehealth Paradigm Business Connections system.
Entries experienced to be very affordable and simple to use, and they experienced to safeguard users’ privacy. They also needed to use cheap resources, be scalable, operate with other health-related purposes, and comply with regional regulatory insurance policies. Submissions arrived from additional than 106 international locations.
Soon after winning the level of competition, Sooriyapatabandige is established to do the job with a regional IEEE Particular Interest Group on Humanitarian Engineering to exam the prototype.
He was a guest speaker in Season 4’s 3rd episode of theIEEE Re-Consider Wellbeing podcast. In addition, he offered his job at the IEEE Expectations Association’s Transforming the Telehealth Paradigm event.
“New and improved procedures, these as distant client checking, deliver about various rewards and gains,” he states. “In purchase to make certain that most of the planet will get to enjoy these gains, it is vital to persuade more individuals and businesses to get associated in these initiatives. Our job and the IEEE SA Telehealth levels of competition are equally centered on attaining the most out of these technologies as early as feasible and generating them accessible to all people just about everywhere.”
The added benefits of IEEE membership
Sooriyapatabandige joined IEEE in 2018. He served as secretary of his university’s IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s college student chapter. He organized several activities and collaborated with other IEEE societies.
Those people options, he suggests, served him improve his leadership and organizational competencies: “I bought to encounter facets of the unique IEEE societies and then establish what was very best for me and exactly where my enthusiasm lies. IEEE also gave me numerous chances, including this levels of competition, to increase my understanding and expertise as very well as to community with pros and authorities.”
