Wearable to Remotely Track Vital Signs for COVID-19
Most of those who test positive for COVID‑19 are sent back home and self-confine. Between 2%-8% of COVID‑19 patients have severe responses that lead to death. Currently, public health workers track the progression of the illness for the COVID‑19 patients by calling them 1-by-1. Tracking the cases more widely is an indispensable approach to minimize the morality rate. As the number COVID‑19 patients is increasing, this approach becomes unsustainable. To eliminate this approach, the proposed project aims to design, develop and evaluate a low cost (<20$) and easy to use wristband integrating a multi sensor platform. The wristband will allow continuous remote measurement of patient's location and vital signs such as blood oxygen saturation, heart and respiration rate, blood pressure and temperature. The measured vital signs and location data will be uploaded on a network (cloud). The network will send alerts to health care professionals if any physiological parameter shows risk. Health care professionals will be able monitor patient's real time vital signs and check the patient's progression of illness. Thus, instead of calling 1-by-1, health care professionals will be able take action for patients based on the data and alerts received remotely. In Canada a large fraction of the casualties in senior care homes can be significantly reduced by remotely monitoring vital signs of seniors and bringing care to them on time. In this regard, the proposed low cost tracker wristband is a feasible and effective solution to support the Canadian health care system. Regarding privacy, consent of the user needs be taken before collecting their data. After completion of the project, iMD Research will quickly move to deploy the tracker wristband for patient monitoring. Initially, they will deploy approximately 1000 devices in local senior care homes in Montreal. Later they will make partnership will local health authorities to track patients at home. The ability of Canada to go back to normal life will depend on the competence to test, trace and track. Our proposed solution can be of immense assist in that effort of test, trace and track in the coming days.
