Image Guided Therapy Center - Ultrasound-based sensor system for the monitoring of COVID-19 patients

Project summaryThere are currently ~1.8 million active cases of COVID-19 in the US. Most of these patients are recovering athome, creating immense needs for remote monitoring. The main tools currently available for the task arethermometers, pulse oximeters and spirometers, to monitor temperature, blood oxygen level and lung capacity,respectively. We developed an ultrasound-based sensor system that captures in rich manner the way in whichpeople breathe, and we believe that such biomechanical information can be an important complement to other,currently available tools. The proposed project involves modifying the hardware and software of our currentsensor system to make it compatible with home-based monitoring, more specifically by making it smaller,wireless, cloud-based and inexpensive.Pulse oximeters and spirometers are closely related to the proposed sensor system in that they offer ameasure of lung health. Spirometers provide a single measurement for the entire respiratory system, i.e., thevolume of air exhaled. Because it is a device that one blows air into, it readily becomes contaminated whenused by COVID-19 patients. Pulse oximeters are very helpful in the sense that they measure a parameter atthe core of lung function, i.e., the ability to convert deoxyhemoglobins into oxyhemoglobins. For spirometersand pulse oximeters, normal or highly abnormal readings fulfill the purpose of a home-based monitoring devicein the sense that they lead to clear decision making when the options are primarily 'remaining at home' vs.'hospital admission'. Intermediate readings, however, can be more difficult to interpret. Especially as treatmentoptions continue to increase and diversify, more data will be needed to inform decisions, and biomechanicalinformation as provided by our sensors is expected to be a valuable addition. By better informing decisions onpatient management, it is easy to appreciate how the proposed sensor system might very well have life-savingeffects in given patients.We propose to develop a rapid home-based testing/diagnostics device, in the form of wearable remote sensorsfor physiological monitoring. Our ultrasound-based sensors monitor tissue velocity and displacement at varioustissue depths, at up to four separate locations on the torso, and as such richly captures the biomechanicalmotion associated with breathing. The proposed project involves converting our current PC-sized system into asmaller, wireless, cloud-based and inexpensive system compatible with home-based monitoring, and todevelop algorithms specific to COVID-19 patients to better convert the rich motion information the sensorsprovide into an assessment of one's state of recovery from the disease. Preliminary results suggest feasibilitywithin one year, and a path to commercialization is presented in the proposal.