Intro and Recap: After meeting with several clients over the course of the 9/2 week, we determined that Dr. Chet Hammill’s proposed project best combined our various interests. Dr. Hammill has currently been using Fitbits to monitor his patients’ activity before and after performing the Whipple procedure in order to first determine whether the patient is fit enough to undergo surgery and to monitor patients’ recovery. The Whipple procedure is usually used to treat patients with pancreatic cancer that is confined to the head of the pancreas. The operation removes the head of the pancreas, the first part of the intestines, the gallbladder, and the bile duct. The remaining organs are reconnected after surgery so normal digestion can be resumed. Dr. Hammill expressed interest in designing a device that can monitor a larger variety of physiological signals useful for monitoring patients pre and post operation and have the data be directly uploaded to a server he can access without patients needing to use Bluetooth.
Problem: Dr. Hammill has faced various pitfalls when using the Fitbits. Some patients cannot properly utilize the Bluetooth feature on their phones to sync the data. When patients are on the recovery floor in the hospital, the Fitbit devices do not work as intended and signals can sometimes even be blocked. For example, some patients hold the IV pole with the same hand the Fitbit is on when walking, which can skew the data. Additionally, using Fitbits limits what signals or types of data that can be measured. The current Fitbits only measure a small fraction of the physiological signals necessary to determine a person’s fitness level and how they are recovering. Patients need to go to their doctor’s office in order to upload the Fitbit data to the doctor’s computer, which is also very tedious for both the patients and the doctor.
What we did this week: We met with Dr. Klaesner this week to update him on who we are working with and what the project will be. Dr. Klaesner brought up some important comments and questions about needing to narrow our scope and needing to be realistic about what can feasibly be accomplished. We also started to make the website for the project.Â
Future Plans:Â
1. Meet with Dr. Hammill on Friday 9/13 to gain more insight into what specifically he wants out of this project and what physiological signals he would most like to be measured.Â
2. Do research about current ways to measure the desired physiological signals and potentially reach out to researchers or companies that could have useful advice
3. Get a better understanding of the recovery process of Whipple surgery and what common complications occur while recovering from the surgery.Â
4. Get a better understanding of the different indicators that can determine if a patient is fit for surgery.
5. Begin thinking about the necessary specs that constrain us.Â
6. Continue creating our team website.