The Indian Institute of Technology Madras, or IIT Madras, has collaborated with a healthcare startup, HELYXON, to develop a device and deploy it for remote monitoring of COVID-19 patients. The device monitors four critical parameters including temperature, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate and heart rate.
As per an IIT Madras statement, the device is self-contained, portable, wireless and can be “clipped on to a patient's finger and data is streamed to a mobile phone or central monitoring system”. The temperature is measured at the armpit while the blood oxygen level and other parameters can be measured at the finger. The device is reusable and has a lifetime of over a year. The devices can be “used by the hospitals and doctors for patient management beyond COVID-19”.
The IIT Madras statement added: “The device has already reached over 2,000 patients in public and private hospitals, and at homes, with another 5,000 devices in the pipeline. Production is being scaled up to meet the growing demand. Cost of the device ranges from Rs. 2,500 to 10,000 depending on the configuration and parameters.”
Describing the development process of the device, IIT Madras faculty and Head of Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC), Prof Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam said: “There are several attempts to reposition consumer type devices like wristbands and wearables as medical devices. But doctors and hospitals are clear that they can only accept devices with accuracy on par with dedicated patient monitors since these are a patient's vital physiological parameters. It was a big learning and a critical input for us.”
“The core technology was validated by a year-long multi-centric study at various Chennai-based medical institutions for the accuracy and performance with reference to current standards...Based on the clinical inputs, the team engineered this device in response to demand for low cost, simple and easy to use devices for monitoring patients anywhere at hospital or home,” the IIT Madras statement added.
