Surgical site infections due to pressure sores and skin breakdowns cost hospitals approximately 1.2 to 1.3 billion dollars per year. Nurses have to routinely check in on patients and perform skin assessments in order to identify pressure ulcers which is a time consuming process and does not prevent pressure injuries from occurring. My Capstone Design project optimizes nurse work time and provides value in predicting pressure injury formation by analyzing high pressure areas on a patient's body, and providing an alert and monitoring system for any healthcare worker to use so appropriate pressure relief protocol can be applied before ulcer formation.
Capstone Design team member, Jim Beutel, shows off a functioning prototype of the team's pressure ulcer sensor mat to an executive from Universal Hospital Services.
The Pressure mat lies on top of the hospital bed. It consists of multiple sensors made up of capacitive fabric that when pushed down, create a variable resistance that the microprocessor reads and interprets as pressure. This data is then sent to the app via Bluetooth to create a display that is easy to use.
Pressure mapping was shown via application that can be accessed through any Android phone or tablet. Areas of green showed little to no pressure risk, while yellow and red corresponded to moderate and severe risk, respectively.
