SMART MEDICAL WHEELCHAIR

Telehealth home human docking station

The problem is that chronically sick people living alone at home have great difficulties in receiving timely medical attention. The Smart Medical Wheelchair can be deployed in a patient's home by an untrained person and be operational in minutes to provide on demand 24x7 virtual medical examinations by a medical personnel at a telehealth connected hospital or clinic. The solution will make it possible for millions of sick people living at home alone to improve their health without a significant increase in the employment of skilled medical staff.

The Smart Medical Wheelchair is a new low cost application of existing technology. It is a human docking station with medical instruments for easy deployment in the homes of chronically sick people to enable them to have 2-way telehealth session with a medical professional using a tablet computer.

The Smart Medical Wheelchair enables self operation by patients alone at home because it employs a patented stethoscope array built into the seat back for remote listening to patient lungs. An array of vital signs instruments is housed in a device docking station controlled by the remote medical practitioner so that one instrument at a time is deployed avoiding patient confusion with selecting the right device. After use each device is retracted out of harms way.

To licence the technology to developing countries to enable local manufacture of the SMW and system integration of the telehealth component with local hospitals and clinics provided with the enabling software for use on tablet computers.

The Smart Medical Wheelchair will enable chronically sick patients to receive regular medical checks via this low cost telehealth platform. Early diagnoses and treatment of conditions before they get worse will save lives. The local manufacturing of the SMW will create local jobs and a whole telehealth ecosystem where none existed before. The new technology will encourage more people to want to train for a career in healthcare because it brings innovation into what might previously have been considered a bottom rung of the ladder employment.

This is a technology transfer solution to enable local manufacturers, hospitals and clinics to build and operate the telehealth system themselves.

The product is not yet deployed.

This is a technology transfer solution which places the development and growth of the system in the hands of the people it will serve. Early adopters in places like South Africa, Middle East and North Africa are expected to see the solution as a way to quickly improve healthcare and promote the start up of local industries to manufacture the product and operate the telehealth service. In 12 months expect the manufacture and deployment of 5,000 SMW units. In 3 years expect that number to grow to 30,000 SMW units.

Telecommunications, systems engineering, volume production, telehealth.

This is a technology transfer solution so it is not capital intensive as the technology has already been developed.

Assistance in raising awareness of the technology transfer opportunity to the medical profession in developing countries.

Raising awareness in developing countries of the availability of this telehealth system. Solve can assist with 'boots on the ground' in these developing countries to raise this awareness.