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WearIT4Health stems from a former project from Interreg IVA Top Technology Cluster (TTC) having for goal to create new collaborations between research institutions and SMEs, late 2014.

T

he heart of this consortium was the Business-University Interface of Liège, Centexbel and KU Leuven. The starting point is the prototypes of existing sensors of partners at a Technology Readiness Level of TRL3 or 4 ("research to prove feasibility"), not yet integrated or tested in hospitals or on patients.

The product that we wish to develop is upcoming. Indeed, it takes a year to go up in TRL. Our goal is to bring the monitor to a TRL 6 ("technology demonstration on a pool of safe patients in hospital") and negotiate a license agreement with a company that will bring the product into TRL 9, the level required to access the market launch.

During the submission of the project, we contacted more than twenty companies of the EMR to submit our idea:

Graphitex (Waremme), Taipro (Liège), Levada (Liège), DIM3 (Liège), Deltatec (Liège), BioRICS (Heverlee), COMmeto (Ham), NXP (Louvain), Comate (Limbourg), Medical Robots (Limbourg), APEX & R&D (Limbourg), Mind the Gap (Limbourg), Neuroteg (Limbourg), Appuise SPRL (Hasselt), Wondzorgcentrum (Limbourg), Innovation Studio (Limbourg), DSP Valley (Leuven), Brooks Consultancy (Limbourg), Maastricht Intruments (Maastricht), MOPAS (Maastricht), Cofely Zuid Nederland (Maastricht), Applied Biomedical Systems (Maastricht), Meetpunt EIZT LIME (Maastricht), Docs in CLouds GmbH (Aachen)…

Budget 

4.6 million Euros, 50% co-financed by the Interreg Euregio Meuse-Rhine European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and 50% by the partner regions (Walloon Region, Belgian Province of Limburg, Province of Limburg), and secondly, the own funds of the project partners.

Project duration

Three years, from 01/11/2016 to 31/12/2019

The consortium

The project is based on a solid consortium bringing together actors from different regions of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine; their knowledge and know-how are high level and complementary. The consortium includes specialists in portable devices, electronic design and manufacturing, computer science, medical data processing, hospital computing, systems integration, prototyping and certification. It also includes the end-users of the devices, namely the hospitals of the different regions of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. This will take into account the cultural and regulatory differences that exist between countries in terms of treatment of patients and working methods in health centres.

Partners

Coordination:  University of Liège - Business-University Interface of Liège

Lead scientific partner:  University of Liège - Microsys laboratory

Centexbel, CHU de Liège, Maastricht UMC+/azM (university hospital), Maastricht UMC+/MU, KU Leuven, University of Hasselt.

The issues addressed by WearIT4Health

In hospitals and health centres, medical devices generally force patients to remain bedridden and prevent nurses from taking full care of them (manipulation, encoding, etc.). These devices therefore also hinder two important aspects of patients' speed of recovery: independence and attention.

The project aims to solve these problems through outpatient, continuous, integrated and automatic monitoring of patients. It will help maintain a high quality of life and care in hospitals at all times, especially when the health care team is working in small numbers (at night, for example). Today, the "Internet of Things" concerns virtually every aspect of our lives.

At the same time, many hospitals are moving towards a "paperless" system involving large-scale digitisation. More and more medical devices and sensors need to be connected to hospital computer systems. The project responds to this trend and aims to bring it to a higher level.

In hospitals and health centres, patients must be connected to numerous devices for monitoring vital parameters such as temperature, heart rate, oxygen saturation... In addition, nurses must perform many manipulations to collect and record the data in the electronic medical record (EMR), which prevents them from fully devoting themselves to patient care.

Putting the patient back at the heart of the health care system and ensuring optimal patient follow-up is the challenge of this project. This objective can be achieved by simplifying the collection, integration and processing of monitoring data.

The objective of the WearIT4Health project is the creation of a portable multi-sensor monitoring device that is comfortable for hospitalised patients and compatible with the IT infrastructure of hospitals in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine.

The monitoring device that will be developed will record medical data and analyse it to help the health care team make the most appropriate decision for the patient.

The final specifications of the monitoring device will result from a co-creation process involving technology providers and hospital users. The specifications will be based on the information currently available to the partners, for the most part at TRL level 4 (sometimes 3) (sensors, portable substrates, hardware, algorithms).

The objective is to obtain a validated / tested monitoring device in a significant environment, in this case on hospital-based test subjects (these can be volunteers, healthy people or a group of carefully selected patients) and for which all the constraints related to the certification will have been taken into account. The final TRL of the monitoring device will be TRL 5 level or beginning of TRL 6 level.

Expected results and outputs

  • Common Euroregional specifications covering the needs of hospitals in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine
  • A portable multi-sensor monitoring device that is energy efficient, comfortable, ergonomic, economically affordable and validated / tested.
  • A software package that ensures the acquisition, processing, transfer and securing of data.
  • A network of companies/SMEs and technology transfer offices in each region to further prepare the production and marketing of the prototype.

Added value of cooperation

The consortium is composed of actors who come from different regions of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine and who have complementary skills in the textiles, IT and electronics sectors. The consortium also includes the end users of the devices: namely, the hospitals of the 3 Euregio Meuse-Rhine countries. This will meet the expectations of care teams in different regions, collect and analyse more data and consolidate the validation of prototypes.

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