NeoVate: Monitoring Neonatal Vital Signs for Low Resource Settings

Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in developing countries are overcrowded and healthcare providers are overworked.Monitoring vital signs is a time-consuming process that nurses often do not have the time to perform for every patient in the NICU.Gold-standard vital signs monitoring equipment is too cost prohibitive to be used in low resource settings. Because of this shortage of manpower and lack of quality monitoring equipment, there is a serious risk of neonatal distress going unnoticed. We are working to develop a low-cost vital signs monitor system that will increase the effective manpower available in low resource settings without having to increase the actual number of healthcare workers available. Our system, NeoVate, is made up of three components:

1. A wearable vital signs monitor that will continuously monitor heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature, and oxygen saturation.
2. A centralized tablet interface that provides the healthcare worker a bird’s eye view of the NICU.
3. A paging system that will reach out to the healthcare worker for immediate attention.

This system will allow nurses to be more efficient in their workflow and maximize the utility of their medical expertise. Rather than constantly performing the time-consuming activity of measuring vital signs, they can focus their direction to the patients who need it the most.