A Novel IoT System For Patient-Centric Pressure Ulcer Prevention Using Sensor Embedded Dressings

Pressure ulcers/injuries (PU/Is) are localized damage to the skin and/or underlying tissue caused by prolonged pressure to an area of the body. PU/Is affect over 2.5 million individuals in the United States annually, are associated with increased morbidity and mortality, and incur a cost of approximately $11 billion to the US healthcare system. Mitigating PU/Is continues to be a challenging task using traditional methods due to their time-and labor-intensive nature, and existing technological solutions tend to be prohibitively expensive, inefficiently implemented, or ineffective. Thus, there is a clear unmet need for a holistic, end-to-end, hospital-integrated, patient-centric system for PU/I prevention. Such a system can monitor pressure at high-risk areas and uses real-time sensor data, analysis, and visualization to guide clinicians and caregivers to perform effective preventative measures. In this paper, we describe a proof of concept of this system, which integrates: (A) a prototype "smart wound dressing" capable of detecting of changes in interface pressure and patient angle over time, including during routine patient repositioning maneuvers; and (B) an open software infrastructure that collects pressure-over-time data, stores, analyzes, and displays them to clinicians and caregivers. We present preliminary results obtained using our current prototype which uses machine learning algorithms to infer a patient's current position based on data from the pressure sensor.