When Sarah and Jon Morris’ twins were born nine weeks early, they embarked on a journey largely dictated by their children’s medical needs. While son Drew was thriving, daughter Emma was severely compromised and was transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). “We felt powerless,” remembers Jon. “Every time we thought we had made progress, we had a setback. It’s always two steps forward, one step back in the NICU. That backwards step always hit the hardest.”
After 296 days at Boston Children’s, Emma went home tethered to breathing and feeding tubes. The Morrises had a pulse oximeter at home to regularly test Emma’s blood oxygen level.
There were frustrating limitations to Emma’s oximeter: Numbers would fluctuate, conditions would change all the time, and if Emma took a turn for the worse, there was no way to formally recall her pulmonary performance. The Morrises were unable to share information in time to help clinicians make decisions. To top it off, the oximeter was yet another line attached to Emma as she slept, adding to her discomfort and making it difficult for Jon and Sarah to safely leave her bedside.
Fast-forward six years to 2014. With the acute phase of Emma’s medical journey thankfully behind her, Jon signs up for Hacking Pediatrics — an event sponsored by Boston Children’s that gives parents, clinicians and entrepreneurs the opportunity to collaborate, “hack” and find innovative solutions to particular pain points in health care.
“I’m one of those people that says, ‘I can either be part of the problem, or part of the solution,’” says Jon. “I knew there had to be a better, smarter way to monitor oxygen.”
Read the full post on Vector: From NICU dad to citizen scientist: Creating a smart pulse oximeter
The opinions expressed in this blog post are the author’s only and do not necessarily reflect those of MassDevice.com or its employees.
The post A citizen-scientist’s quest for a smart pulse oximeter appeared first on MassDevice.
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