Improving Patient Monitoring

Life Detection Technology, a Boston-based startup, uses a wireless sensor and AI to monitor patient health and detect anomalies, with data processing supported by a system developed by NineTwoThree Studio.

Concept

The current solutions to monitor a patient’s bio patterns depend on devices that need to be physically attached to the person being monitored. This setup is often riddled with errors due to gaps in the data coming from the devices. For example, when older adults wake up in the night, they frequently forget to put these devices back on after removing them.

In addition to user error, materials used to attach these devices, like using glue to stick them to the chest, often cause patients discomfort. Sometimes the devices even cause skin issues. These challenges lead to patients dreading using the devices and make data collected less reliable. These current methods lead to a lot of discrepancies in data collection and complicate healthcare professionals' abilities to catch early signs of health issues in patients.

Life Detection Technology (LDT) offers a new way to handle the problems caused by traditional sleep or medical study devices. Instead of a device that needs to be attached to the patient in some way, LDT created a special wireless sensor that fits under the regular bed sheet. Patients can go to sleep like they usually would, and the wireless sensor takes care of collecting important health data.

While the LDT team had the skills to ensure the sensor data helps healthcare professionals, they didn't know how to build a data pipeline or a dashboard for doctors to receive the reports and notifications. They connected with NineTwoThree to serve as their development partner to help bring this idea to life.

Challenge

In order to use a wireless sensor for measuring a patient’s biosigns, three things need to happen: (1) data needs to be sent to the cloud (2) the data needs to be cleaned through a data pipeline so it can be applied to the AI algorithm developed by a data scientists by the LDT team, and (3) the processed data must be stored, displayed correctly, and sent to healthcare professionals in any timezone if there are any deviations from the norm. When working with LDT, NineTwoThree needed to find a way to collect this data, create a pipeline of the data, and make sure healthcare providers could find actionable insights in their reporting.
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Data Collection and Creating a Data Pipeline for an Internet of Things Medical Device
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Collecting data from a sensor device comes with its own set of challenges. In order to keep cloud storage costs manageable, NineTwoThree only wanted to collect data while the patient was actually sleeping. This fact means healthcare providers and LDT have to know exactly when the data can be collected. Plus, if the data shows something out of the ordinary, healthcare providers need to find out right away.

‍The LDT sensor relies on Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The data coming from the sensor needs to be cleaned, stored, and available to restore if LDT’s engineers need to perform deeper analysis. Once the data has been processed by AI, remote healthcare providers need to view the data in the patient’s timezone and receive timely notifications when something deviates from the baseline, based on the rules set by the medical staff. if something was detected that deviated from the set of rules that were set in the baseline.

Needs for Regulatory Compliance in Medical Technology

It was critical for LDT to meet regulatory standards in data handling and privacy. On the healthcare side, the solution is required to meet all quality standards with HIPAA compliance and FDA approval. On top of that, LDT must follow data privacy laws, especially GDPR for Europe, and state laws in the United States like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

production

To gain a better understanding of the application, view the video below which provides a comprehensive demonstration of its features and functionalities.

Solution

As LDT 's development partner, NineTwoThree worked with the team every step of the way. Our team ensured we had a robust data pipeline for engineers, a way to display data and notify healthcare providers, and that all software followed regulatory protocols.

Building a HIPAA-Compliant Data Pipeline

NineTwoThree’s greatest challenge in the product was building a data pipeline that can clean, store, and restore data with security, privacy, and utility in mind. Building a HIPAA-compliant product takes a significant amount of work, effort, and complexity both technologically and administratively. Our team worked hand in hand with Eric Howie, LDT’s CEO, to establish the necessary guardrails, checks, and mechanisms to become and stay compliant. As LDT’s development partner, our team met with compliance vendors and identified the best vendors to use based on LDT’s goals.

NineTwoThree built this data pipeline with more than 380 checks in place, including rigorous data protocols, data handling policies, and controls. These checks need to be reassessed periodically – daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly – to retain the HIPAA and GDPR compliance certification. The stored data follows top security guidelines and protects the patient's privacy while allowing LDT engineers to analyze the data if they need to dig deeper into the data. Once NineTwoThree established the data pipeline, we needed to make sure the data was usable to healthcare professionals on the receiving end of the dashboards.

Optimizing Data Collection for Healthcare Professionals

LDT’s success hinges on the ability to collect quality data that can be used for decision-making. In an 8-hour sleep window, LDT needed to collect 6 hours of data during the night. In this way, LDT could get uninterrupted data that won’t be affected by fluctuations of when a patient goes to sleep. NineTwoThree created a patient onboarding flow where healthcare professionals ask patients when they usually sleep. Then they will set up a collection window during six hours of the time the patient sleeps. During the initial phases of using the device, the first few nights of data are used to establish a baseline that can be used as a reference for determining fluctuations in a patient’s biosigns.

In addition to collecting data at the right time, NineTwoThree needed to make sure that healthcare professionals could receive the data based on the patient’s timezone. Since LDT is a multinational product and healthcare professionals and patients may not share the same time zone, NineTwoThree developed the product to account for time-zone differences. This detail makes sure doctors and other healthcare providers can understand the data no matter the location.

Impact

In summary, Life Detection Technology (LDT) and NineTwoThree have created a new, easy-to-use sensor that replaces uncomfortable medical devices. The new sensor offers the same level of reliability and security as traditional devices while providing patients with more comfort and healthcare professionals with valuable insights into patients' health. With daily data analysis and globally accessible insights, LDT not only resolves existing challenges in healthcare monitoring but sets a new standard for patient-centered care.