The intensive care unit is a very critical area and can create a great deal of tension and stress for patients and families. Effective and appropriate communication is an important part of the healing process, not only for the patients, but also for the family. Most of the ICU’s will have multiple vital signs monitor to collect the parameters from patients and display the same graphically or textually in a display. Critical care physicians inspect those parameters and do actions accordingly. This is a 24 X 7 job for a physician and nurses where they do not have time or way to hold the families normal. Also in most of the ICU’s, families are strictly not allowed due to many medical reasons.

By the Intensive Care Terminal (ICT), both families and Physicians are more supported equally in terms of relief for the families by interacting with the patient audio visually and an added advantage for the Physicians to monitor the patients remotely.

Remote monitoring is made possible by interfacing the existing patient vital monitor device at the bedside. Most of the vital monitor device that is currently available supports external interface options such as RS232, Ethernet, etc. They output the vital parameter in a standard message formats such as HL7 etc. These messages contain the data organised in a specific format which can be decoded to obtain the useful information’s. Here in the ICT project the ICT device is placed in the ICU and it interface with vital parameter monitor through a wired connectivity. The ICT will capture the vital parameters and upload the same in the cloud server. The physician will have an Android tablet with ICT Android app running which fetches the data from the cloud server and displays the same graphically supporting remote monitoring. WiFi connectivity in tablet supports connection to the cloud server.

The ICT device also includes camera, speaker and MIC for family patient interaction. The live video and audio will be captured and uploaded in the cloud server. The Android tablet with ICT App will support option for live streaming of video and audio.

There are two main functionalities included in our project. One is the patient-family audio visual interaction and other is the remote monitoring of patient vital parameters such as ECG, SpO2 (Digital Oximetry), Non Invasive Blood Pressure (NIBP), respiration rate (CO2), temperature etc.

To realize such functionalities we require two devices, one at patient side and other at the physician’s location. The device at the physician’s location, typically an Android tablet, will support remote monitoring and interaction facilities.

The device at the patient side (hereby referred as Bed side unit) will acquire & transmit vital parameters from the patient monitors and support interaction also. Physically it might be mounted on a motorized table that can be controlled over the network. The Bed side unit is under the scope of this project.

The block diagram of the ICT project is depicted as below,

Following are the specifications of the bedside unit,
1. Control unit: GR peach board powered by Renesas RZ/A1H platform
2. Interface: RS232 serial interface for interfacing ICU vital parameter monitor. It acquires patient vital parameters such as SpO2, ECG, CO2 readings.
3. Video & audio: Inbuilt VGA Camera interface support for live video capture and line out supports speaker interface and MIC supports capturing live audio
4. Display: 7.1 inch TFT LCD with touch panel supports local configuration and to view the live video streaming.
5. Cloud Connectivity: Ethernet supports connection to the cloud via external router. Acquired vital parameters and audio, video data’s are sent to the cloud instantly.
6. Motor control: PWM timers available at the GR peach board extension connector supports controlling the servo motor which are placed in the table for motion control.

ICT App

ICT App is an Android app that can run in any Android smart phone or tablets. It facilitates remote monitoring of the patient parameters graphically as well as supports viewing the records related to patient history, physician’s diagnostics, prescriptions etc. Also there are options available for motion control of the table from remote location through tablet in order to place the device at convenient location for better viewing angle.

Nowadays tele-health is becoming very popular and people are more aware of the same. Hence this project will be an innovative idea and can reach the market in few more researches and developments. Since the end application is going to a critical area, the implementation of this ICT concept needs more and more ideas from physicians who can put logic points for better realization. Following are the few more ideas for future implementation,
1. Integrating the cloud server with the hospital server for remote access of the electronic records in the tablet
2. Design of remote unit based on RZ/A1H platform with LCD, touch screen, audio and video options dedicated for family patient interaction. At present the tablet acts as a remote unit where in future remote unit will be integrated in the project which can be placed at the ICU entrance door. This helps preventing physicians from being disturbed every time for audio visual interactions.