Hyderabad: ECIL develops new tech to remotely monitor patients

Hyderabad: Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) has come out with 'Monal,' an indigenously developed intelligent wearable instrument for measuring vital parameters of Corona patients, such as body temperature, SpO2 (blood oxygen level), heart rate and respiration rate, along with patient location and a novel application software that remotely displays these parameters on a mobile phone, laptop / desktop computer for monitoring by doctors from any location.

Speaking to The Hans India, Rambabu, Executive Director and Head of Nuclear & R&D & Electronic Voting Machines, ECIL, said, "The device was developed within 20 days and could be useful in many ways and not just for Corona patients. Nurses need not check a patient every hour. One can monitor the health parameters of the patient from anywhere. It could be used by corporate hospitals in a big way."

Presently, the cost would be Rs 15,000 but with bulk orders, the cost can come down to Rs 10,000, he said. It enables round the clock health monitoring of cases in home isolation, reduce demand of PPE and mitigate the problem of increasing exposure to doctors and healthcare workers. It has been developed by ECIL in association with AIIMS, Rishikesh. The solution aims to enable round-the-clock health monitoring of cases in home isolation, reduce demand of PPE and mitigate the problem of increasing exposure to doctors and healthcare workers.

The system is built on Internet of Things (IoT) based technology to reduce the exposure of doctors / frontline healthcare personnel to Corona patients and can be easily installed on hospital premises and at quarantine centres.

The indigenously designed instrument digitally transmits the recorded parameters of the patient on a Bluetooth/GSM SIM to an IoT Gateway/Internet Cloud from where data is securely uploaded over a network to a Command Control Centre from which the data can be downloaded by doctor on his mobile phone or laptop through an application software (app) developed by ECIL for remotely monitoring the health parameters of patients.

The display software designed by ECIL has many useful features like patient identity, geographic location on a map, important health parameters with recorded time and different zones (like Red / Orange / Green) of a specified area (like city / district / state). One of the salient features of the system is that it presents the trend of the vital parameters of patient and also generates alerts in case any of them are not in specified limits.

The system also utilises Google Map or indigenously developed BHUVAN software of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for identifying patient location. ECIL worked closely with National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for incorporating this feature. The system has already been tested successfully on a large subset of patients at AIIMS, Rishikesh. The device was officially inaugurated by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, via video conferencing on Tuesday.