COVID-19: Utilizing Smart Phone Sensors and Activity Trackers for Remote Vitals Monitoring and Screening
To facilitate the screening of patients and to improve identification of risk factors for COVID-19, or other health issues, we propose to use sensors present in every smart phone as well as from different activity trackers, to enable objective computation of vitals for remote monitoring and screening. We propose to apply signal processing and machine learning techniques to develop a reliable method to determine respiration rate, respiration quality, heart rate, heart rate quality and anomalies in respiration or heart rhythm using the available sensors of any modern Android or iOS smart phone – particularly three-axis accelerometers and three-axis gyroscopes. This information will then be fused with readings provided by any present external fitness trackers and other smart sensors (smart scales, heart rate monitors, smart watches, etc) to augment internal phone data processing. This information, once blended with subjective information on symptoms from the patient, will provide nurses with a more complete picture and will improve the screening, triaging, and monitoring process for COVID-19.
