LOW-COST AUTOMATED NURSE CALL SYSTEM FOR IMPROVING PATIENT CARE USING LabVIEW

摘要

Nurse Call systems are used to signal nurses for medical assistance. Present day technology uses push buttons and room lamps integrated with liquid crystal displays (LCDs) at the nurse station in most hospitals in India. Such systems are not automated and also have the risk of false alarms due to mishandling by caretakers. This prototype uses an automated technology, when implemented monitors patients in critical care units continuously and detects specific arrhythmia conditions with the help of thresholds based on pre-set standards and the information is passed on to the nurse station only in case of an emergency thus allowing continuous monitoring of the patient. Since the system is centralized, the CODE BLUE team (Dedicated team in every hospital to attend patients during a cardiac emergency) is also alerted at the same time minimizing the delay in medical assistance. This system would be most useful in emergency conditions such as Cardiac arrest, thus increasing the chances of survival of a patient. For this project, LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench) 2014 version (software) and National Instruments MyRIO (NI Reconfigurable Input/Output) hardware are used. On comparison with some of the present day nurse call systems, the proposed system is also economical in most of the developing countries such as in India.