In the year 2017, you may not know it, but your camera could be monitoring your blood pressure. When asked to design at-home monitoring devices nine years out, a group of college students said the biggest design challenge would be getting family members to use the equipment to their benefit.
Students from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena worked with GE Healthcare Engineers for the “Imagination @ Work: Healthcare Everywhere” project to address the needs of the aging population. By 2017, technology will have advanced, and if current estimates are correct, and families continue to disperse, the aging population will have an even greater need for at-home monitoring.
Home health providers will have access to more monitoring devices, but factors such as a family member’s resistance to using them and memory impairments could make it difficult to obtain consistent readings. Successful at-home monitoring may be the key to keeping people out of facilities and letting them stay in their own environments longer.
That’s why the students designed the O Cami, a digital camera that can also monitor heart rate, SpO2, and blood pressure. It is a medical device for at-home monitoring that looks and acts like an ordinary household object. The camera, for example, gathers basic vital signs while the person is handling it.
GE Healthcare
www.gehealthcare.com/usen
Art Center College of Design
www.artcenter.edu
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