Mysuru Girl's Smart Band To Monitor Patients Wins 6th India International Science Festival

Seventeen-year-old Deepti Ganapati Hegde from Mysuru has developed a device in the form of a smart band, which can measure 10 different body parameters in real-time along with a few COVID-19 symptoms.

The girl has made Mysureans proud by winning first place at the 6th India International Science Festival (IISF-2020) under the 'Navbharat Nirman' domain, reported The New Indian Express.

The wearable device can measure some COVID-19 symptoms like basic body temperature, blood pressure, cough, etc., including other parameters.

This band can be coupled with a mobile app that receives data from it, which is sent to a cloud server.

The cloud-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine uses state of the art machine learning algorithms in early prediction of heart failure exacerbation, cardiac arrhythmias for cardiac patients and other symptoms for the antenatal care of pregnant women.

Whenever the AI agent predicts something is wrong, it immediately sends alerts to family members, friends, a doctor at the hospital and an ambulance along with the current location of the respective patient.

This technology can be used in a remote-monitoring and disease-surveillance programme and is built using IoMT (internet of medical things).

This project aims to capture personal sensor data and sift it for early signs of potential exacerbations to help monitor the progress of the patient and guide prompt interventions.

Studying in at BASE PU College, Mysuru, Deepti was the sole representative from the city in the finals and won a cash amount of ₹25,000. There were a total of 3000 participants up to the age of 45.

Deepti said, "Healthcare has become a luxury for the poor and rural people, and the situation has only worsened after the COVID-19 outbreak. Rural healthcare is one of the biggest challenges the country faces. With more than 70 per cent of the population living in rural areas and low level of health facilities, mortality rates due to diseases are on the rise."

She stressed on the fact that the healthcare system in rural areas should be digitised. She said that there is a need to come out with more innovative solutions. "Through connectivity and collaboration, rural hospitals are large enough to serve our community's health needs, but we are also small enough to care. The wearable technology, which I am working on, can be implemented on a rental basis with minimal charge, for instance, the pregnant band could be given on rent up to the period of 7-8 months till delivery for Rs 300," she added.

The Department of Biotechnology jointly organised the 6th India International Science Festival (IISF-2020), Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences virtually with 10 lakh+ delegates from all over the world.