And now a remote health monitoring system to assess health of COVID-19 suspects/patients

Bengaluru, Apr 9 () All India Institute of MedicalSciences (AIIMS)-Rishikesh, in collaboration with Navratnadefence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), has developed astate-of-the-art health monitoring system to remotely assessthe health of COVID-19 suspects/patients quarantined in homesand hospitals.

"The solution aims to significantly reduce the risk ofexposure to healthcare workers. It is also expected to reducethe increasing demand of PPE and other logistics," a jointstatement said.

Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to developa solution to remotely monitor patients for limiting exposureof healthcare workers was prime and urgent, it said.

To address this need, AIIMS Rishikesh and BEL cametogether to provide a "comprehensive digital and clinicallyappropriate solution."

Based on inputs given by AIIMS-Rishikesh, Bengaluru-headquartered BEL developed the Proof of Concept (PoC) modelof a system integrating non-invasive health monitoring sensorsto measure critical parameters such as temperature, pulserate, SPO2 (Saturated Oxygen level) and respiration rate.

BEL, which has proven expertise in Network Centric andIoT systems, has also networked these sensors for remotelymonitoring the critical parameters, the statement said.

A mobile app/web browser has been developed for peopleto get enrolled with AIIMS-Rishikesh once they show symptomsof COVID-19.

AIIMS-Rishikesh will study patient complaints andbased on the assessment by clinical experts, a healthmonitoring kit will be handed over to the patient forperiodical monitoring of the critical parameters.

Patient health parameters, along with patientlocation, are uploaded on a regular basis on to a centralisedCommand & Control Centre (CCC) on Cloud using either thepatient's mobile phone or integral GSM SIM.

The use of Cloud will facilitate seamless scaling ofthe database of COVID-19 suspects/patients.

Software will give out alerts in the form of messagesto medical officers and health care workers when the healthparameters exceed the threshold.

It will also record the severity of the patient'scondition in different colour codes.

Data analytics software of the CCC will alsographically map the geo-distribution of COVID-19suspects/patients in the state.

This would help the hospital administration invisualising the hotspots and taking necessary action toisolate and cordon off these areas to check the spread thevirus.

Director & CEO of AIIMS-Rishikesh, Prof Ravi Kant andChairman & Managing Director, BEL, M V Gowtama havecongratulated the team led by Dr Mohit Tayal and Mr RajasekharM V, Chief Scientist (Central Research Laboratory-Bengaluru),BEL, for developing the solution, it was stated. RS SS