It is an unfortunate fact of life that people often fall down. What’s even sadder is that sometimes, they never get back up.
Patient fall injuries has become major concern for hospitals- in New Zealand, up to 52 per cent of reported serious injuries are due to patients falling during admittance. While certain solutions already exist in the market to detect falls, none exists that actively prevents falls from happening in the first place.
An opportunity to research this problem was generously funded and supported by various stakeholders, including the Canterbury District Health Board, the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, the University of Otago’s Medical School and the University of Canterbury’s Engineering department. As the principal researcher, I was tasked with developing a proof-of-concept prototype to prevent this problem.
I began by reviewing the problem, existing solutions and interviewing the doctors and nurses at the hospital. A range of possible technological solutions were shortlisted:
- RFID
- BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) also called iBeacons
- Computer Vision solutions
- Lasers
- Ultrasonic sensors
- Force Sensors
- Stretch sensors
After further consulting with some engineering professors we decided to explore the BLE (iBeacon) solution.
