Smart Diaphragm

SMART Diaphragm: Changing the Way Doctors Detect High-Risk Pregnancies

Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Apr 22, 2011

Tagged With:

Read More >>

SMART Diaphragm: Changing the Way Doctors Detect High-Risk Pregnancies data sheet 2986 Views

Pre-term births can result in dangerous deliveries for mothers and life-long medical problems for children. Currently, one in ten babies are born prematurely, but a new project called SMART Diaphragm is working to change this through an early detection system.

SMART Diaphragm is an early warning system for high-risk pregnancies. Pregnant women insert a sensor-enabled diaphragm that monitors changing collagen levels in the woman's cervix. The results are wirelessly transmitted via bluetooth-enabled phones to a cloud data storage system.

Basic Information
Website URL: 
http://project.vodafone-us.com...
Organization involved in the project?: 
Smart Diaphragm
Project goals: 

The project goals were: Create an affordable, accessible way to identify problems in high-risk pregnancies before visible symptoms occur. Build a wireless monitoring system that works in both developed and developing regions.

 

Brief description of the project: 

Smart Diaphragm is an early warning system for high-risk pregnancies. Pregnant women insert a sensor-enabled diaphragm (the Smart Diaphragm), which monitors changing collagen levels in the woman's cervix, and the results are wirelessly transmitted via bluetooth-enabled phones to a cloud data storage system.

Target audience: 

Pregnant women with high-risk pregnancies for premature birth

Detailed Information
Length of Project (in months) : 
12
Status: 
Under Development
Anticipated launch date: 
2011 Oct
What worked well? : 

The team reports that the partnership between the group of bio-engineers and obstetricians trained for high-risk pregnancies resulted in a great deal of creative ideas as the groups brought different backgrounds and skill sets to the team. They also found that using the sensor-enabled diaphragm worked well as many women were already familiar with the device as a means of contraception, and thus could insert and remove it themselves without needing a physician's help.

What did not work? What were the challenges?: 

One challenge the group has faced is getting the product ready for control testing as it's very difficult to clinically study devices in pregnant women; the measures taken for safety are extremely high so as not to hurt the mother or fetus, and the pregnancy only lasts a finite amount of time.

Links to any evaluations/reports/research: 
http://project.vodafone-us.com... 


 




  
Winners of Vodafone Awards Showcase mHealth Innovations


Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Apr 14, 2011


On Monday, Vodafone and the mHeatlh Alliance announced the winners of the Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project and the mHealth Alliance Award. Although all three winning projects focus on health applications of mobile technology, each project has an entirely different focus: in first place, NETRA uses a clip-on device for mobile phones to quickly diagnose eye disorders; in second place, SMART Diaphragm monitors high-risk pregnancies by wirelessly transmitting information to physicians; and in third place is Cool Comply, a system designed for community health workers to keep medications cool and to allow them to stay in contact with patients.



 

        
      
Tagged With:

      

             

     




Read More >>