Description of Session
Pneumonia is a high priority health problem for International and national organizations. It is the leading cause of death in children worldwide, killing an estimated 900,000 children under five years of age, with most of these deaths occurring in developing countries. Current methods of diagnosis use paper-based guidelines and rely on rural health care provider’s ability to determine the condition of the child and measure critical vital signs, such as temperature and child’s breathing rate. To date, necessary point of care devices have not been incorporated to detect severity of pneumonia. Our research presents a low-cost monitoring system designed to help the community-based health workers monitor key signs of severe pneumonia in children, namely, breathing rate, temperature, pulse rate and pulse oximetry. Our technology, called NewPneu comprises of a hardware and Android based software solution that collects information from a variety of sensors through an app and using a Low Energy bluetooth connection. We will present the design of our system, power consumption, performance and accuracy. The system has proven to be highly accurate, low-cost and feasible for low-resource settings, however we are looking for wider interest and partners to conduct field testing of the technology and bring this solution to scale.
