GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – “What if smart technology could be used to improve at-home care for orthopedic patients? We’re here at UF’s Malachowsky Hall to find out more. Dr. Bhunia, tell us more about where we are,” said Bethany Gaffey, host of UF Innovate.
“We are at the IoT lab, which stands for Internet of Things lab. That belongs to Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World. We’re dealing with smart devices. These are tiny computers equipped with different sensors, and the data can be transmitted through internet to a centralized computer,” said Swarup Bhunia, researcher at the University of Florida.
“When I hear smart devices, I think phones and watches, but is it more than that?” asked Gaffey.
“Absolutely, a lot more than that. The smart devices are equipped with sensors and they have something called a brain, which means that they can run artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to make decisions on the data being collected by the sensors,” said Bhunia.
“You recently had a collaboration involving orthopedic care. Tell us more about that,” said Gaffey.
“Yeah. For orthopedic surgery, after you do the surgery, the patients go home and they need to be monitored while they’re recovering. So we came up with a new platform of sensing device, which is called Pasteable, and these are stick and peel kind of sensors which, like a band aid, can be put on any surface. And the sensors can be put in the insole of a shoe and it can monitor the patterns. By doing that, the data collected by the sensors can send to the cell phone, and the cell phone can run artificial intelligence algorithms to figure out whether the pressure pattern or pattern is acceptable or not,” said Bhunia.
“Why is this real-time feedback important for orthopedic patients?” asked Gaffey
“There are two reasons for that. Number one, after surgery and when the patient is recovering, the sensor can sense the amount of pressure put on different parts of the body, and based on that it can make a decision. The second reason being that sometimes we need to make a decision based on a large number of parameters. Now, AI can do a very good job in looking at many different parameters and coming up with intelligent decisions,” said Bhunia.
“Smart technology has the potential to improve patient care in many fields. Stay tuned for further collaborations coming out of the Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World,” said Gaffey.
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