DIAGNOSTIC CENTRES TO CHIP

 DIAGNOSTIC CENTRES TO CHIP

Portable Medical Devices

As the world is evolving, the use of portable medical devices is also rapidly expanding as advancements in wireless technologies have increased patients movement at hospitals or homes. Medical devices are used to diagnose, prevent, or used for the treatment of illness or disease. It is also used to measure, restore, correct or modify the structure of the body.  It was earlier available in hospitals or diagnostic centers but now it has become portable. We can use me from where ever you are sitting. It was used under supervision of an expert but today, you can do self- assessments. Portable medical devices came into our life to increase awareness about health and fitness, with latest technologies. This resulted in the development and adoption of portable health care devices and remote patient monitoring. As we know hectic and stressful lifestyle has resulted in increase in multiple health disorders. In today’s fast moving world, people prefer to have quick access to monitoring and diagnostic devices. The use has revolutionized the way in which people can determine their own health and well-beings. Portable diagnostic devices not only provide continuous and non-invasive monitoring of health parameters, but also provide real-time updates to healthcare providers.      

Some of the examples include,

BLOOD PRESSURE MONITORING SYSTEM

The patients with hypertension or hypotension has increased so much that today there is no family which is not affected by this condition and the routine for rise or fall of blood pressure is also become very common. Wireless Digital blood pressure monitoring machine are highly portable. It can be attached to our upper arm, and with the use of smart technology it records and monitor blood pressure, and gives us digital reading.

BLOOD GLUCOSE MONITORING SYSTEM

Smart portable glucose monitoring machine measures the blood glucose in one go. What makes it smart is the ability to connect to our smart phone to monitor our blood sugar level over time and share with the doctor. The extraordinary quality it has is its ability to test our glucose levels remotely anytime, like before and after exercise, conveniently without usual blood tests.

AUTOMATED INSULIN PUMPS

As there is lot of efforts taken by patients suffering from type 1 diabetes to do multiple injections. Unlike the manual techniques, automated insulin pump system can continuously tracks blood glucose level and then adjusts insulin levels and decides to whether it should give little or no input to the user.

PORTABLE EKG/ECG MONITORS

It helps to assess heart activity and used during electrocardiogram tests. While the older version would display data as graphical lines on paper, the latest version includes LCD screens and sensors to let you view results by taking your pulse via your fingers with a mobile application.

PULSEOXIMETER

It is a small, lightweight device used to monitor the amount of oxygen carried in your body. The non-invasive tool attaches painlessly to your fingertip, sending two wavelengths of light through the finger to measure your pulse rate and how much oxygen is in your system. In this Covid time it has become an important part of our life. Please make sure to use FOREHEAD THERMOMETERS in all your work place. It can help you prevent this deadly pandemic virus.

HOW IT WORKS?

THE HARDWARE

Its features and performance requirement defines the processor selection. It can range from an 8-bit microcontroller to feature-rich systems on chips comprising of multi-cores or digital signal processors (DSPs). Low power ARM Cortex-M/A processors are ideal for its small size because of its small form factor and minimal power requirements. The complex version requires graphical user interface and wireless connectivity and powerful processors like Qualcomm Snapdragon. It needs to be compact; this is achieved by packing multiple components in small space. However, its hardware design also needs sink design to dissipate waste heat.

 

 THE OPERATING SYSTEM (OS)

Android and Linux OS have been the preferred choice for most of the devices due to our highly customizable and advanced features to compute, and for performance and power. However, to ensure power and memory optimization, OS must be optimized with a small memory footprint. Most real-time operating systems will provide some form of power management techniques that need to be implemented as per the requirement.

DEVICE CONNECTIVITY

Following the latest IOT trends, we can see a shift in how they are connected. Earlier, their connectivity was expected to be intermittent wired or wireless. Now, it is possible to provide global connectivity either directly to the Internet, or to a local intermediary version, such as it can be paired to the user’s smartphone, which eventually provides a path to the Internet. The future is highly dependent on this wireless connectivity. This includes Radio, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, up through mobile cellular networks. This is an area where technologies and options are changing rapidly.

                                       

Example, eInfochips has a good engineering experience in my FDA Class 2 and Class 3 for monitoring, diagnostics & imaging, wearable health and telemedicine. eInfochips has developed many version of us for diagnostics, home care, and remote monitoring based on latest NXP i.MX, TI and Qualcomm Snapdragon processors.    

                             

FINAL VERDICT

It can be of great help not only to patients but also to health care providers but it cannot be accessed well by people living in remote areas. Physicians should encourage users to utilize portable medical devices to improve their outcome. Though it might not be accurate as long as the possibility of imprecision exists the use will be uncertain.

Thank You.

Mehnaaz Alam

Intern at Clinosol Research Private Limited