Tag: preventive healthcare

Stepping-up Health Tech

IIT KGP and ICMR Collaboration for Mega Boost to Medical Technology Industry and Healthcare Ecosystem of India

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IIT Kharagpur is going to set up a Centre of Excellence on Medical Device and Diagnostics to foster innovation of affordable and indigenous medical devices and diagnostics in priority areas and promote entrepreneurship. The proposal has recently been accepted for funding of ₹20 crore by Indian Council of Medical Research. 

In January 2020, ICMR had given a call for setting up a Centre of Excellence based on which IIT Kharagpur had proposed for the set up with thrust areas encompassing artificial intelligence in healthcare, medical devices for screening and diagnostics in healthcare, medical implants, biosensors in healthcare etc. 

“We thank ICMR, the apex body of Government of India spearheading biomedical research, for entrusting us with this responsibility. We look forward to working closely with ICMR and making meaningful contributions through these efforts. We had a rewarding experience in engaging with ICMR through a pilot ICMR – IIT Kharagpur MedTech internship program that drew great interest among engineering and medical students,” said Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur. 

India’s population size makes her healthcare challenges particularly the needs of the marginalized population in remote areas, unique, which require indigenous solutions. Accessibility and affordability have to be two key pillars of India’s medical technology development efforts. The coming together of ICMR and IIT Kharagpur is expected to give a big boost to already initiated R & D efforts at IIT Kharagpur that aim to lessen the burden of present pandemic. Further in the long run, this association will help the Institute achieve the goals set for the upcoming  Dr. B C Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research, a R & D driven super-speciality hospital followed by the first of its kind medical college in the IIT system. 

“Recently we heard that people residing in nearby areas of West Bengal and neighboring states of Jharkhand and Odisha are feeling hopeful that the burden of accessing healthcare facilities on patients and their families would be reduced with the upcoming superspecialty hospital of IIT Kharagpur. This can be taken further by catering to the need of a patient to visit a hospital through technology enabled healthcare at home and local level. The ICMR-IIT KGP Centre of Excellence will carry this responsibility forward with the much needed boost by bringing medical and technology domains together” said Director Tewari.

The centre will target to develop marketable technologies in a mission oriented time frame and use this experience to achieve longer-term goals to address challenging problems in the field of medical devices and diagnostics. Also, new intellectual property generation and a clearly defined licensing path will be the priority of the centre. Further the centre will try to extend medical technology related support to other organizations including different centres of ICMR.

For Project Information: Prof. Goutam Saha, gsaha@ece.iitkgp.ac.in

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook:@IIT.Kgp|Twitter: @IITKgp|Instagram: @iit.kgp

Pandemic Healthcare Technologies Underway @IITKGP

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IIT Kharagpur has set up research funding for R&D work related to COVID-19. The Institute submitted a list of projects to the IIT Council last week of which 8 projects have been selected.

Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Hon’ble Minister, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India appreciated and acknowledged the initiative by the Institute on his social media handle congratulating the Director Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari and his team of researchers.

Talking about the initiative Director Tewari said “It is our responsibility to improve the quality of life of the last person in the society. While we built some quick technologies to cater to the immediate needs of the essential service providers at the campus, we were simultaneously preparing project proposals and evaluating them keeping in mind the immediate need of the country, cost and product delivery period.”

The researchers would be working on several technologies including design and development of rapid diagnostic kit, real-time PCR machine, body suit for COVID-19 patients, personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and portable shredder integrated with sterilizer, Hazmat Suit with forced purified and cooled air circulation for medical professionals, bootstrapping ambu-bag as automated ventilator, telemedicine for fighting viral pandemic, large scale production of recombinant proteins for vaccine and testing.

An amount of Rs. 50 Lakh has been allotted for phase I of 8 projects towards development of prototypes. For most of these projects, the prototypes are expected to be ready within a duration of 3 – 4 weeks, while a couple of them would take about 6 months to deliver the results. The phase I is expected to start immediately after the lockdown is relaxed and the research staff are able to attend the laboratories. Meanwhile software related work would progress as usual.

“IIT Kharagpur has a proven track record towards development of indigenous health and hygiene technologies which are affordable, high-quality at par with globally accepted standards, and commercially viable. Our researchers are committed to deliver the prototypes within a constrained timeline considering the healthcare needs in the current situation,” added Prof. Tewari.

1 Development of smartphone-integrated paper-strip kit for rapid low-cost diagnostics of COVID-19 infection Prof. Arindam Mondal and Prof. Suman Chakraborty
2 Design and Development of an indigenous Real Time PCR Machine Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Prof. Prasanta K. Das, Prof. Suman Chakraborty (ME Dept), with inputs from Dept. of Biotechnology and Physics
3 Towards large scale Production of Recombinant Proteins for Vaccine and Testing of Novel COVID-19 Prof. Sudip K. Ghosh, Prof. Ananta K. Ghosh and Prof. Ramkrishna Sen
4 Bootstrapping the ambu-bag as automated ventilator Prof. Aditya Bandopadhyay + Faculty and Students from ME Dept
5 Design and Development of a Bodysuit for COVID-19 Patients to Prevent the Spread of Infection Prof. Nishant Chakravorty
6 Telemedicine for fighting viral pandemic such as COVID-19 Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay
7 A Hazmat Suit with Forced Purified and Cooled Air Circulation for Medical Professionals Prof. Manoj Kumar Mondal
8 Personal Protective Equipment for Health Care Workers
Prof. Santanu Dhara and Prof. Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya
8.a. Portable shredder integrated with sterilizer

Alumni Innovate COVID-19 Health Technologies

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The cases of infections and deaths related to COVID-19 in India are increasing by leaps and bounds. While it took about 2 months to reach the first 1000 cases, it increased to 2000 just within 5 days, then with every 3 days the count has been increasing by 1000, and now the frequency of that occurrence has reduced to a day. Today the COVID+ cases have crossed 8000. Though experts concur that the lockdown has checked the spread of the disease till now to a considerable extent, the need for eHealth technologies is crucial in a country with a billion+ people under home quarantine. Four alumni starts-ups from IIT Kharagpur have developed technologies to offer assistance towards surveillance, mass-scale sanitization and automatization of  dissemination of official information related to novel coronavirus.

Surveillance

Innovaccer, a data-driven healthcare technology start-up co-founded by Abhinav Shashank and Kanav Hasija from 2010 batch, has has launched a self-assessment based app to screen for COVID-19 patients. The self-assessment test asks users to fill in a survey based on their symptoms. It also provides coronavirus-related updates to citizens in the region.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a serious challenge to current healthcare infrastructure. While our providers are tirelessly treating thousands of patients every day, we want to help them in this global health crisis by expanding their reach. To help the government, healthcare organizations and all frontline healthcare workers care as one, we are launching COVID-19 Management System to enable virtual care,” says Abhinav Shashank, CEO of Innovaccer.

Health authorities of Goa and Puducherry have tied up with Innovaccer to curb the spread of novel CoronaVirus pandemic with the Automated Self-evaluation Assessment to Identify At-Risk Patients for COVID-19.

In another such initiative, Intugine, co-founded by IIT Kharagpur alumni Harshit Shrivastava (2016 batch) and Ayush Agrawal (2018 batch), is using their flagship product ‘Mobile Number Location Tracking’ to monitor huge number of home-quarantined individuals and ensure they follow social distancing. The Kgpians claim that their location intelligence platform, which is based on cell triangulation technology, can work on SMS-based user content without installing any application, i.e. even on basic phones, which makes it easy to implement. 

The company has recently announced that this solution can enable effective crowd monitoring of quarantined cases in a least intrusive and scalable manner, on a single dashboard with a central control tower, reducing the pressure on the ground teams to visit each location and ensure adherence.

“Our logistics platform fits seamlessly in providing a solution to the coronavirus monitoring. Upon understanding it better, we quickly tweaked our platform by conducting a pilot in a handful of districts to check the feasibility,” says Ayush Agrawal.

He confirmed getting positive response as well in detecting the breaches of home quarantined cases and reaching out to appropriate authorities who can put the platform to use for surveillance.

Mass-scale Sanitisation and Sterilization

While surveillance of the population is critical, a significant section of the population engaged in essential services are required to regularly access public spaces. Alumnus Debayan Saha collaboratively developed Airlens Minus Corona, a device which may help sanitise large areas. The innovators claim that the product might be able to address the challenge by using charged water droplets which are ionised using the viral discharge.

“Alcohols (like ethanol or IPA) are known to inactivate viruses by denaturing their protein coat. But the alcohol-based hand sanitiser is useful for individuals or for sanitising surfaces at a smaller scale (home, offices, etc.) in the fight against coronavirus. However, this is insufficient in such an emergency as it is impractical to use alcohol for sanitising cities,” said Saha.

The device is designed to look like Robo Sapien (human-like) machine that operates on the mechanism of charged water droplets which are ionised using the corona discharge. The ionised water in return oxidises the viral protein reducing it to a non-harmful molecule, opined the innovators. The innovators are hoping to reach out to organisations and government bodies for large scale application.

Bot

While media is reporting on health status, government announcements related to COVID-19, people may have queries regarding the lifestyle to follow beyond social distancing and hygiene guidelines. Apollonius Voicebot developed by alumnus Souva Majumder is addressing such queries. People can record their queries on the platform denguebot.in which are answered by an AI application. The bot has integrated information provided by the World Health Organization, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India, and My Gov platform.

COVID-19 has reaffirmed the need for technology based hygiene and healthcare, which may not fade away with the situation normalising but rather lead to a future which cause less damage from pandemic, which may not require global lockdown.

This article only shares information about technological innovations by the alumni and is neither an endorsement nor can be used as a statement of validation  for the above mentioned interventions.

If you are alumni, faculty or student of IIT Kharagpur and working in the following areas, please share your story on media@iitkgp.ac.in.

  • Personal protective equipment,
  • Surveillance,
  • Sanitization,
  • Testing kit,
  • Development of medical equipment, bots,
  • Pharmacological or non-pharmacological treatment,
  • Data analytics and AI to model epidemic patterns and disease dynamics

Protecting the Protectors

Making Face Shields for Healthcare Workers During Lockdown

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Professor Santanu Dhara and Professor Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya, researchers at the School of Medical Science and Technology at IIT Kharagpur have made a prototype to make face shields for healthcare workers from home during the lockdown. The face shield is an essential part of the personal protective equipment (PPE) required for healthcare workers taking care of patients with suspected COVID-19.

The basic PPE for healthcare workers include respirator or face masks, eye protection including goggles and face shields, gloves and gowns. The face shield is a transparent plastic protective cover, attached to an elastic head gear. It  protects the face from splashes. There is a shortage of all PPE for healthcare workers globally.

Professor Santanu Dhara and Professor Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya have designed a face shield using materials which can be procured even under the nation-wide lockdown. The items include transparency sheet, sponge, folded paper, cardboard or packaging box, elastic, or rubber band, and double-sided tape. A team from the School of Medical Science and Technology  produced 14 such face shields in 2 hours and are in the process of making more, while remotely working from their homes.

“At a time when the demand for protective wears has escalated sharply, we have to improvise products using easily sourced materials and simple process to offer some sort of protection for the health workers,” remarked Prof. Santanu Dhara.

Download DIY Video

“It is essential to get personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and the faceshield is just one part. We are contributing in a small way, these have not been rigorously tested,” said Prof. Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya. 

Face shields like other medical equipment require testing and certification. These are desperate times. There is a dire shortage of PPE globally and health care workers have taken to crowdsourcing. The hashtag #GetMePPE is trending across social media.  

Download DIY Video

 

Disclaimer: This release is made in the public interest.  Items described herein are only prototypes and caution is warranted during the DIY procedure. Every medical product and equipment requires testing and certification by appropriate authorities before use. 

COVID Preventive Care @IITKgp

Stakeholders at IIT KGP promote hygiene and preventive care amidst COVID-19 scare

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A team of researchers from IIT Kharagpur’s School of Medical Science and Technology has successfully developed an alcohol based hand rub following the present scenario of scarcity of hand sanitizers/ hand wash preparations in the market due to their heavy demand. The team created the formulation based on guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization.

The hand rub essentially consists of isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, glycerol and water. This formulation is based on WHO guidelines of local in house production that is effective against bacteria and viruses. 

The team consisted mostly of research scholars Atul Kumar Ojha, Ayan Gope, Anurup Mukhopadhyay, Lopamudra Das, Akashlina Basu, a few of whom are from pharmaceutical technology background.

The Transport Section of the Institute led by Prof. Mihir Sarangi from the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering has also developed another formulation based on 70% Isopropyl or Rubbing alcohol, or Ethanol + 30% Aloe vera gel + 10 drops of Essential oil.

Both groups are making their sanitizer available to the select segments of the staff to help them adhere to hygiene protocols as advised by WHO while they continue providing essential services to the students and campus community.

“The formulation has been prepared only on non-commercial basis and undertaking for its use has been taken from different labs,” confirmed researcher Atul Kumar Ojha. 

The Institute has also ordered for masks designed by the healthcare authorities of the campus and made locally as has been confirmed by Director Prof. V K Tewari.

Further to this, to limit social connection at official premises, The Institute on March 22, 2020 following a communication received from the Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, permitted working from home or hostel to Faculty members / Researchers including those working in projects / other Scholars & Fellows who are carrying out research / Non-Teaching staff (except employees attached to emergency services) till 31st March 2020 or until further order.

The academic staff and research scholars are being encouraged to develop on-line content, on-line teaching and on-line evaluation, prepare lesson plan and develop instructional material for the courses to be offered during next academic year / next semester, carry on research and project related works, write articles, papers, prepare innovative questions for question banks and even strategize innovative projects on ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’ program and other topics.

Smartphone App to Aid Smoking Cessation

Smartphone applications in the present times are the popular source of information on market intelligence. In the last decade, these gadgets have been revolutionizing the consumer world by replacing our wallets and bringing services such as cabs, restaurants, shops, IoT based smart homes at our doorsteps. These are also contributing to our fitness regime. But smartphones can give a lot more insights, they can tell what we are doing at the moment, our habits and the associated health hazards. This is what researchers at IIT KGP have confirmed through their latest innovation.

A research team led by Prof. Ram Babu Roy at IIT KGP’s Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship (RMSoEE), has developed a prototype of sensor-based activity tracking kit which can monitor the activities in daily living. Further, a Smartphone-based application is under development which will analyze the tracking kit data and send alerts for an unhealthy lifestyle and suitable recommendation. The innovation is a sensor-based technology for automated recognition of addictive and depressive behaviour.

While India is reaching a critical threshold for killer diseases like cancer and depression, there is an emerging need for a shift from sick care to preventive care. This issue can be addressed at a faster rate through e-healthcare considering the inadequate availability of professional caregivers and medical practitioners.

“The scenario led us to explore the most commonly used gadget and develop the much-required technology which can be used for providing interventions in near real-time via mobile app to promote cessation from addictive habits,” remarked Saurabh Singh Thakur, a research scholar at IIT KGP RMSoEE.

The technology is capable of producing a daily activity chart based on body movements especially of the hands and predict daily functions such as eating or drinking water or behavioural tendencies such as smoking or consumption of alcohol. The application can also monitor call and message logs and internet usage on the smartphone and alert the user or the caregiver regarding cell phone usage. Prolonged usage data would indicate poor sleeping habit thus predicting possible health hazards.

“We did a pilot study over a period of time capturing data on activities of daily living with the help of a mobile app developed for android phones. The different activities captured are a marker of various physiological and psychological health. The data collected was dependent on the time of the day when it was captured thus demarcating the normal and abnormal activities. Further, data analysis is being carried out to identify various behavioral activities and patterns to do behavioural profiling of individuals. This could lead to enabling of personalized e-healthcare services through a smartphone,” said Prof. Ram Babu Roy, who is leading this innovation at IIT KGP RMSoEE.

The activity tracking kit has been developed using a 6-axis inertial sensor along with a heart rate sensor which could be worn on the wrist. A pilot study was conducted with four participants. Their hand movement pattern was recorded for around 5 minutes for smoking and non-smoking intervals each, using this kit. Preliminary analysis of the data showed that there exists a periodicity in the data during the smoking episode. During the non-smoking interval, the sensor signals are random and do not exhibit such periodicity.

Further data collection with a greater number of participants in different environments, data pre-processing, analysis, training, model generation, and testing is under progress. The research team collected GPS data as well for locational information and physical movement. There is a correlation between physical activities during the day and psychological health. Thus, such data analysis would further help in strengthening the mental health and wellness of the user.

The need of such a technology can be more emphasized at the wake of the reports by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Mental Health Survey (NMHS). While according to ICMR, new cancer cases or its incidence in India are estimated to grow by 25% by 2020, NMHS 2015-16 reports that every sixth person in India needs mental health intervention of some sort.

The prototype developed at IIT KGP is initially focused on smoking habits. However, the research encompasses the scope of predicting depressive behavior as well. The team has published several peer-reviewed papers in international journal and conferences of repute. They are working towards filing a patent for further commercialization of the product.

“At the Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, we encourage entrepreneurial minds of the engineering students. It is the first school of its kind in India and we focus on incubating innovations into start-ups. Considering the field reports and further test results and preferred career choices of the innovators, such innovations are quite capable of creating new markets,” affirmed Prof. Partha Pratim Das, Head, RMSoEE, IIT KGP.