A new device has been developed to measure physical symptoms in COVID-19 patients. This non-invasive device allows medical personnel to monitor a variety of symptoms with a singular device.
This throat sensor, developed by the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab and Northwestern University in Illinois, is applied on top of the skin and worn for all hours of the day. It tracks patients’ respiration rate, coughing, heart rate and body temperature, and its long periods of use allow for analysis of general trends in patient symptoms. This temporal continuity provides advantages over alternative devices that measure patient symptoms at one specific point in time.
In addition to its non-invasiveness, this throat sensor also allows for ease of sterilization, as it does not have any external ports. Once per day, the device is removed from the patient, and it is charged wirelessly. During this time, its data from the prior day are uploaded to a corresponding iPad. The data are then analyzed by artificial intelligence. The use of AI ideally allows for less human working hours to be spent on data analysis, however, as this device is still in development, all data is vetted by a human researcher before it is used to inform any future treatment strategies.
Dr. John Rogers, a professor at Northwestern University, details how this technology captures patient data with respect to coughing and respiration: [custom_blockquote style=”blue”] “There are problems with microphones with ambient noise and tremendous invasions of privacy. We use a high-bandwidth, tri-axis accelerometer to measure movement of the surface of the skin.”[/custom_blockquote]
If this proprietary device continues to show merit and remains a preferable method of tracking patient symptoms, it may become a widely-adopted technology in the ongoing pursuit of efficiently dealing with the spread of COVID-19 infections. If widespread adoption of this device occurs, this bears other implications on the trajectory of usage and production of alternative technologies that are currently used to measure and track patient symptoms.
Via: CNet
COVID-19 has already caused significant social and economic impacts on medical device organizations world wide. At iData Research, it is our prime responsibility to keep you updated on the latest market trends in the industry. We are working hard to update the contents of our report library to reflect on changes in the market due to the effects of the coronavirus. Through our MedSKU service, our clients are able to track the changes within different market segments based on hospital purchasing data.
In addition, we have created a dedicated page, COVID-19: Implications for the Medical Device Industry, to post news updates and provide information on the current market situation. It is our intention that this page can help industry leaders ask the right questions, and shed light on what the future might hold for medical device markets.
Stryker Emergency Authorization for Respirator Decontamination Stryker Emergency Authorization for Respirator Decontamination
