A Stand Alone Wearable for Tracking Environmental Exposure and Evaluating Respiratory Response

PROJECT SUMMARY
Every year, 1.5 million emergency room visits are COPD exacerbates. Lack of remote patient management and
telehealth primes most COPD patients to visit the emergency room and be admitted to the hospital. The health
and economic burden of these visits’ costs more than $24 billion annually. Remote patient management in COPD
can prompt treatment, prevent symptoms from worsening, lead to healthy lifestyle changes, and improve patient
outcomes. We are developing a novel product that can make quality healthcare more accessible and
convenient, allowing healthcare providers to manage more patients, reduce the risk of hospitalization through
prompt treatment (remote patient monitoring) by focusing on prevention over treatment, and reduce the overall
healthcare cost. Our product is a stand-alone environmental exposure and lung health monitoring system
designed to measure personal exposure to pollutants and triggers to respiratory distress, assess respiratory
functions, and transfer data to healthcare providers for early intervention, patient management, and
medication adjustment. This product allows physicians to receive alerts when a patient's reading is too high
and keep an eye out for at-risk patients for quick action to prevent symptoms from worsening and better
medical decision-making while enabling patients to engage in healthier lifestyle choices. The main objective
of the proposed research to be completed within phase I is to advance prototype I into an intelligent
version with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity to instantly transfer data to a patient's smartphone and
healthcare professionals for daily assessment and patient monitoring. The advanced and intelligent version
will be miniaturized in weight, size, and power consumption for easy use and tested by focus groups for
comments on durability and usability. We will achieve the following metrics of success before advancing to phase
II: 1. Compare the performance of the product's finalized design with Lab test equipment (sensors) data after
calibration, 2. Evaluate the speed in data transfer and connectability in software (connection speed <2 s (after
finding the BLE of the device and adding the device's ID), time to deliver the collected data of one day <3
minutes), 3. Processing data and generating a prediction, 4. Comparison of sensor data with the station data for
air pollution, expecting less than 5% deviation, and 5. Test the durability of the system, hardware (battery,
sensors, package/housing), and software (codes, storing data, network connectivity) for long use without
malfunctioning, and 6. Use the System Usability Scale (SUS) Test with a score > 70% as an acceptable
milestone. Our product is expected to reduce the risk and cost of hospitalization by focusing on remote
patient management, early identification, and prevention. It will allow healthcare providers to keep an
eye on their high-risk patients in between clinic visits and help prevent COPD from worsening and
hospital stays while allowing patients to stay in contact with their doctors and make healthy lifestyle
changes.

Grant Number: 1R41HL174172-01
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Terry Chapman