AIIMS Nagpur ‘develops’ smart wristband to track positive and suspect patients with coronavirus

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Nagpur in partnership with IIT Jodhpur and IIT Nagpur have indigenously built and developed a model for successful tracking and monitoring of positive and suspect COVID patients.

This system is in the form of a smart wristband designed to solve the limitations of tracking and monitoring of any current online mobile applications.

The current apps rely on the quarantined person continuing to use cell phones and on the availability of secure internet connections.

The existing mobile apps also use GPS or cell tower triangulation methods to track location with accuracy that can sometimes vary up to a radius of 1.5 to 2 kilometers.

Besides tracking the movement of the quarantined person, monitoring their symptom, which in the current apps relies only on subjective self-assessment of the user, is also important.

“The latest app will provide free mobile activity using a geofencing system that will provide a real-time warning to any violation in the quarantine region,” said Dr. Prathamesh Kamble, Assistant Professor of Physiology at AIIMS Nagpur.

Furthermore, this wristband will provide real-time, objective and reliable data on the wearer’s vital factors such as temperature, pulse rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation, so that the person in quarantine will receive a health alarm to help them seek early medical assistance.

Such data will be collected and stored on the cloud to enable remote monitoring by health care staff.

The technology is developed by the IIT Nagpur city-based professionals Dr. Mayur Parate and Dr. Ankit Bhurane. This device will function on a technology that is more efficient than the GPS system, Dr. Mayur said.