Beeping monitors. Stick-on electrodes. The finger clip that takes your pulse. Modern medicine comes with a cacophony of sensors. Oxehealth, a company spun out from the University of Oxford, is aiming to replace them all with just one 鈥� a camera.
uses camera data to measure heart rate, respiration and blood oxygenation from a distance. It鈥檚 now trying out the technology in the real world, in hospitals, psychiatric wards and police stations.
One place the tech is being tested is at the , Oxford鈥檚 main teaching hospital. Patients who will need a spell in intensive care after their surgery are being asked to participate in the trial: Oxehealth鈥檚 cameras will monitor their vital signs in parallel with conventional sensors.
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鈥淣ormal monitoring involves sticking things on patients,鈥� says Oxford University Hospital Trust intensive care doctor Peter Watkinson. 鈥淚t makes it less easy for them to get out of bed, have a shower or go to the loo. Every time you roll over in bed you pull the thing off.鈥�
The Oxehealth software watches for the tiny pixel changes in video frames as a patient鈥檚 chest rises and falls when they breathe, for example. It also tracks subtle changes in the pinkness of their skin, using that to infer their pulse. The software works with regular video cameras and runs on a computer connected locally or over the internet. It could share results with doctors on screen, or trigger an alarm if vitals drop beyond a specified range.
No obvious symptoms
Watkinson thinks camera monitoring will make it possible to catch patients whose condition is deteriorating before their symptoms are obvious. At the moment, clinicians have to decide which patients they need to monitor 鈥� usually those who are recovering from a procedure or are already very ill. This means doctors may miss the signs that someone is becoming sicker. But the cameras would be able to keep tabs on everyone in their vicinity.
鈥淚t gives the opportunity in the future for pervasive monitoring throughout the hospital,鈥� says Watkinson. 鈥淚t would be much more reliable picking up patients at risk of deterioration throughout the hospital.鈥�
Oxehealth鈥檚 Oliver Gibson says the company has also been doing studies with London鈥檚 Metropolitan Police Service and Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital. Here the firm is 鈥渢rying to solve the problem of making sure someone is safe when they鈥檙e in a secure room鈥�.
In April this year, Broadmoor installed cameras in one of its rooms, and then monitored volunteer patients and staff. Staff would sit in the room during the day, while patients would sleep there at night. Both were wired up with sensors to validate the readings the cameras took.
Broadmoor鈥檚 patients need regular monitoring, says the hospital鈥檚 director Robert Bates 鈥� especially at night. 鈥淲e usually check on patients every 15 minutes,鈥� he says. It can be hard to tell whether someone is breathing just by looking through their door, so staff have to approach patients to make sure they鈥檙e OK. 鈥淚t鈥檚 upsetting for the patients because they鈥檙e being regularly disturbed,鈥� says Bates.
Ditch the wires
The camera system could offer a less intrusive means of keeping tabs on residents. 鈥淚t will also help us monitor our patients鈥� physical health after administration of medication,鈥� says Bates. 鈥淎nti-psychotics can have impact on patients鈥� physical health.鈥�
Gibson says the Broadmoor study confirmed the cameras鈥� accuracy. 鈥淲e were getting a breathing rate accuracy where 94 per cent of measures were within two breaths per minute of a contact device,鈥� he says. 鈥淣inety-four per cent of heart rate measures were within three beats per minute.鈥�
Oxehealth is not alone in its ambition to free patients from their wires. at RWTH Aachen University in Germany is setting up a wireless monitoring ward in the university hospital. Six beds in the geriatrics department will have cameras monitoring their occupants鈥� vitals.
鈥淲e鈥檙e setting it up now,鈥� says Leonhardt. 鈥淲e鈥檒l find out what鈥檚 good for elderly homes in general. The reach will be large as we have an ageing population.鈥�
The biggest advantage of camera monitoring may come after patients are discharged. Wiring people up to keep track of their health is impractical once they鈥檝e left hospital, but camera-based systems could work.
鈥淧erhaps people could go home earlier from hospital and we could monitor them remotely,鈥� says Watkinson. If chronically ill people could be monitored from home, he says, they could perhaps avoid coming into hospital at all.
