Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Management and Monitoring of Post Partum Bleeding

Imagine a woman who has just given birth to a beautiful little baby. She has endured 9 months of emotional and physical pain, but it is all worth it at the end, as nothing compares to the joy of life. Now imagine a different scenario. A short time after this woman has given birth, she dies as a cause of post partum bleeding. This is probably the worst thing that can happen to a family, to a child, and to the mother. Last year, there were almost 25,000 cases of serious post partum bleeding in a developed country like the United States alone, and 25% of those women died within a month of giving birth. This condition is even worse in the developing and undeveloped world. After a woman gives birth, she usually bleeds out between 500-1000ml of blood depending on whether it was a normal birth or a C-Section. In some cases, this bleeding does not stop as a result of some sort of fibrous tissue exerting extreme pressure on the blood vessels surrounding the uterus. Some of the common techniques used to stop these cases of post partum bleeding are massaging the uterus, applying ointments and creams, inserting artificial clots to stop the blood flow to the injured part of the blood vessel, and in extremely serious cases, removal of the uterus. The best and most commonly used technique though, is inserting hydrogel beads, which form embolizations upstream of the injury. Now, this seems like the perfect product, however in many cases the physician has to insert multiple beads hoping one will fit in place. These beads are also extremely hard to place correctly and often are misplaced for this reason, and in some instances even though these beads fit in place initially, they tend to come lose after a period of time. This defeats the whole purpose of the embolization. Misplaced or loose beads can be extremely dangerous to patients, as they can flow within the blood stream and in some cases lead to hemorrhage. Challenge 1: We are looking for teams to develop a better way of placing these hydrogel beads and an innovative way to monitor them. Challenge 2: We are looking for teams to develop an innovative way to stop bleeding in patients suffering from post partum hemorrhage.

Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Home Monitoring for Chronic Disease Management

In India, 53% of all deaths in 2005 were estimated to be due to non-communicable diseases. Non-communicable diseases pose a different and more complex threat to the health systems of countries, already faced with the unfinished agenda of infectious diseases, and maternal and child health problems. The hallmarks of these diseases namely long latency, chronicity, multiorgan involvement and need for long-term care make the management of chronic conditions difficult. Treating patients in the later stages of NCDs is technology-intensive and expensive. Therefore, a key strategic objective in the context of limited resources and the gaps in health systems is to improve access to cost-effective and sustainable health-care interventions that reduce the health and socioeconomic burden of NCDs. Home health devices enable the chronically ill to avoid the time and effort associated with frequent hospitalizations and patients who have undergone major surgery to receive post operative care in the comfort of their home. However, awareness needs to be increased among patients, and low cost products need to be developed to target the rural population. Some of the major hurdles in developing home monitoring technologies are affordability, functionality and sustainability of the device. Challenge: Develop an improvement to currently existing home monitoring technologies or develop an altogether new system that targets chronic, non communicable diseases.

Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Point Of Care Diagnostics

Point-of-care (POC) tests have the potential to improve the management of infectious diseases, especially in resource-limited settings where health care infrastructure is weak, and access to quality and timely medical care is a challenge. These tests offer rapid results, allowing for timely initiation of appropriate therapy, and/or facilitation of linkages to care and referral. Most importantly, POC tests can be simple enough to be used at the primary care level and in remote settings with no laboratory infrastructure. POC tests can potentially empower patients to selftest in the privacy of their homes, especially for stigmatized diseases such as HIV. In a market structured as India, 72% of the population resides in rural geographies while 75% of the available medical infrastructure is based in urban settings. With a very wide scattering of low rural population densities, it comes as no surprise that transportation costs amount to as much as 80% of health-care costs. In India, it is anticipated that both communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCD) will continue to rise and be major Public Health Concerns. NCD such as cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory disease, cancer, and accidents account for more than half of the deaths in our country. A critical part of a health-care delivery model is to reduce the number of referrals and thus impact these costs. Quick diagnosis of the above mentioned conditions at the level of primary care aids a medical practitioner in deciding the level of escalation for a patient's ailment, thus saving on valuable time and expenditure for cases which do not need tertiary care. Challenge: Develop an innovative, sustainable technology that mobilizes standard diagnostic tests that are usually only seen at hospitals and in labs.

Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Post Surgical Patient Monitoring

Postoperative recovery is a multifaceted and dynamic process involving biological, physiological, functional, and psychological components. Increasing physical independence, a gradual return to activities of daily living (ADLs), and a return to normal mobility are all aspects of functional recovery that act as global indicators of a patient's well-being following surgery. For most patients, the evaluation of their ability to perform ADLs occurs only in the hospital setting where, prior to discharge, a patient has to demonstrate the ability to transfer independently, feed themselves, toilet themselves, dress themselves, and finally bathe. There is, however, a case for continuing to monitor functional recovery at home using ADLs in patients such as older people, those living alone who still require significant rehabilitation, the disabled, and those with neurological deficit (such as after a stroke). Continuous monitoring of neurological activity is critical in effective stroke monitoring, particularly in the first few hours after the onset of stroke. It provides valuable insight into the recovery pattern and informs the decision to re-intervene with alternate or high dosage drugs. What is required is a system that monitors a patient's ADLs continuously and objectively in their home environment, yet in a manner that is non-disruptive to their daily lives. Patients' functional recovery at home following surgery may be evaluated by monitoring their activities of daily living. Existing tools for assessing these activities are labor-intensive to administer and rely heavily on recall. There are options that rely on wireless technology which may not be suitable in the Indian context, especially in semi-urban and rural parts of the country. Hence, there is a need to develop low-cost solutions that can objectively monitor functional recovery in the unsupervised home setting. Challenge: Develop an innovative, unobtrusive technology that is able to monitor functional recovery of post operative patients. The device must be able to communicate the recorded data wirelessly.

Jugaadathon Jugaadathon 2014 2014 Problem Problem Statement Statement

Pregnancy Home Monitoring Solutions

A huge problem during any pregnancy is the risk of miscarriage. Due to a wide variety of events ranging from mental and physical stress to unhealthy habits, a mother can cause irreversible damage to the unborn child in some cases even leading to premature death of the child. Currently the only way for a mother to know the state and health of the baby is to go to their physician; however we are looking for teams to develop a sustainable technology that can be used by mothers who do not have easy access to physicians. Such a device may be able to lock into the vital signs of the baby or even just measure some sort of stimuli like pressure from kicks etc. This way, in the case that there is any hint of a problem (even if it is a false alarm), the mother can take the necessary action. Challenge: We are looking for teams to develop low cost systems that women can wear or carry around with them during pregnancy to check vital signs of their unborn child.

Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Neo-Natal Respiration Monitoring System

Child mortality is a sensitive indicator of a countrys development. In India, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) (under one year) has shown a modest decline in recent years. About 22 per cent of the childhood mortalities under-five are caused respiratory infections (22 per cent). Averting neonatal deaths is pivotal to reducing child mortality. One of the most difficult things to measure accurately in neonates is respiration rate. Devices that do this use a measurand called impedance respiration. Even though this is currently the gold standard in respiration measurement it is not a very accurate indicator of true respiration rate in infants. Alternately, respiration measurement can be performed by using nasal thermocouples, respiratory-effort belt transducer, piezoelectric transducer, optical sensor (pulse oximetry), these techniques are inconvenient to perform at home and they may bring discomfort and soreness to the patient. We are looking for teams to develop innovative new ways of measuring respiration rates in neonates. Teams are encouraged to look into new sensor technologies such as using pressure sensors, accelerometers etc. to measure an infants respiration non-invasively. A welcome addition to the device would be to make it wireless so that it can be used as a home monitoring solution as well. Challenge: Develop a wireless, non-invasive device that is able to accurately measure an infants respiration. Transmit and analyze the data to provide feedback on state of respiration.

Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Neo-Natal Respiration Support

Child mortality is a sensitive indicator of a countrys development. In India, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) (under one year) has shown a modest decline in recent years. About 22 per cent of the childhood mortalities under-five are caused respiratory infections (22 per cent). Averting neonatal deaths is pivotal to reducing child mortality. Premature infants often require mechanically assisted breathing during the first few weeks of life while their lungs develop. In some patients, special machines are used to provide highfrequency ventilation (HFV). HFV delivers small bursts of air at very high frequencies, which has been proven effective in delivering oxygen to neonates. Despite its widespread use, HFV can be difficult to control in clinical practice. However, HFV is quite a complex device and is not needed in most cases. We would like teams to think about sustainable solutions or very basic hacks that can be utilized in order to substitute basic ventilation for neonates in the case that they have a respiratory impediment and require assistance in breathing. Challenge: Develop an innovative hack that can substitute expensive ventilators and be used to assist in neonatal respiration.

Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Deskilling of Pathology Labs

In India alone we have seen the emergence of thousands of pathology labs over the last decade or so. These labs exist everywhere from urbanized metropolitan cities to villages in rural sectors of the country. These labs offer overnight results to a huge population of the country, however with such a large scale there is a large potential for error. One of the main problems is the lack of trained pathologists around the country. In most cases the people carrying out these tests are glorified lab technicians. We are looking for teams to develop innovative solutions to deskill these pathology labs by designing new devices that can substitute the job of the technician. This will lead to a lower error rate and more accurate diagnosis for the patients. Challenge: Design a device or a set of devices that can substitute skilled tasks that the technician currently performs in pathology labs.

Jugaadathon 2014 Problem Statement

Emergency Medical Services and Trauma Management

One of the leading causes of fatalities not only in India, but worldwide are road traffic accidents. In many cases the mortality rate is increased simply because the quality of first responder care was not good enough. We have all seen how abysmal the state of ambulances in India is. Part of this is due to the fact that well equipped ambulances are very expensive to maintain, and the other part is that you require well trained first person responders to tend to the patient. The very basic solutions lie in developing intuitive, affordable equipment that can help emergency technicians stabilize the patients. Challenge: We are looking for teams to develop innovative solutions to help first responders better assess injuries and stabilize them on the way to emergency care centers or hospitals.