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Monitoring COVID-19 from hospital to home: First wearable device continuously tracks key symptoms
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Wireless sensor gently sits on throat to monitor coughs, fever and respiratory activity
About the size of a postage stamp, the soft, flexible, wireless, thin device sits just below the suprasternal notch - the visible dip at the base of the throat. From this location, the device monitors coughing intensity and patterns, chest wall movements (which indicate labored or irregular breathing), respiratory sounds, heart rate and body temperature, including fever. From there, it wirelessly transmits data to a HIPAA-protected cloud, where automated algorithms produce graphical summaries tailored to facilitate rapid, remote monitoring.
They also are responding to other requests for access to the technology, across the medical complex in Chicago. Additional deployments are starting now.
Thanks to a generous gift from Northwestern University trustees Kimberly K. Querrey ('24 P) and Louis A. Simpson ('58, '96 P), Rogers and his team are able to respond quickly to requests for devices. Leveraging a set of manufacturing tools available in the new Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Building in Chicago, the team is already producing dozens of devices per week. Rogers estimates that his team could produce up to hundreds of devices per week - all in house, largely bypassing the need for external vendors and complex supply chains.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2020/04/monitoring-covid-19-from-hospital-to-home-first-wearable-device-continuously-tracks-key-symptoms/
May 04, 2020
The more we learn about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the more unknowns seem to arise. These ever-emerging mysteries highlight the desperate need for more data to help researchers and physicians better understand - and treat - the extremely contagious and deadly disease.
Researchers at Northwestern University and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago have developed a novel wearable device and are creating a set of data algorithms specifically tailored to catch early signs and symptoms associated with COVID-19 and to monitor patients as the illness progresses.
Capable of being worn 24/7, the device produces continuous streams of data and uses artificial intelligence to uncover subtle, but potentially life-saving, insights. Filling a vital data gap, it continuously measures and interprets coughing and respiratory activity in ways that are impossible with traditional monitoring systems.
Developed in an engineering laboratory at Northwestern and using custom algorithms being created by Shirley Ryan AbilityLab scientists, the devices are currently being used in a study at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab by COVID-19 patients and the healthcare workers who treat them. About 25 affected individuals began using the devices two weeks ago. They are being monitored both in the clinic and at home, totaling more than 1,500 cumulative hours and generating more than one terabyte of data.
About the size of a postage stamp, the soft, flexible, wireless, thin device sits just below the suprasternal notch - the visible dip at the base of the throat. From this location, the device monitors coughing intensity and patterns, chest wall movements (which indicate labored or irregular breathing), respiratory sounds, heart rate and body temperature, including fever. From there, it wirelessly transmits data to a HIPAA-protected cloud, where automated algorithms produce graphical summaries tailored to facilitate rapid, remote monitoring.
"The most recent studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggest that the earliest signs of a COVID-19 infection are fever, coughing and difficulty in breathing. Our device sits at the perfect location on the body - the suprasternal notch - to measure respiratory rate, sounds and activity because that's where airflow occurs near the surface of the skin," said Northwestern's John A. Rogers, who led the technology development. "We developed customized devices, data algorithms, user interfaces and cloud-based data systems in direct response to specific needs brought to us by frontline healthcare workers. We're fully engaged in contributing our expertise in bioelectronic engineering to help address the pandemic, using technologies that we are able to deploy now, for immediate use on actual patients and other affected individuals. The measurement capabilities are unique to this device platform - they cannot be accomplished using traditional watch or ring-style wearables that mount on the wrist or the finger."
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