JeevanLite: IoT enabled smart ventilator

Most of the pandemic-causing viruses attack the respiratory system hence we observe a huge inflow of patients with shortness of breath to the emergency ward. Doctors have to handle multiple patients and closely monitor their progress to wean them from the ventilator and provide ventilation facilities for the next patient in queue. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, most of the clinicians and nurses were infected with the COVID-19 virus and lead to their death. 

Aerobiosys Innovations has developed JeevanLite an IoT-enabled smart ventilation system at an affordable price with a unique subscription business model which makes the device accessible even in rural areas. Doctors from the city can monitor the patient's condition with minimal risk of transfer of infection. 

a. About 15-20% of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases infected patients are expected to have serious complications like shortness of breath. For such patients, artificial breathing or Mechanical Ventilation is the only option. 

b. Existing Ventilators in hospitals weigh 25-30 kgs, and it is hard to transport them if a patient has to be moved from one room to another.  

c. The current ICU-based ventilators in the market cost a minimum of Rs 7 lakh ($9476.87)—with the price of some going up to Rs 15 lakh ($20307.59).

d. The present ventilators are sophisticated and require qualified training before one can use them on patients. Doctors have to observe the progress of ventilated patients for every 30 mins which increases the chance of transmitting the viral infection to the medical staff when they are in close contact with the patients.

e. In a pandemic-like situation where they are 100s of patients waiting for a ventilator, we need a centralized monitoring option so that with the minimal workforce, you can handle the situation in a better way.

Aerobiosys have developed an innovative ventilation system called “Jeevan Lite” a portable, cost-effective, IoT-enabled, battery-operated pressure and volume triggered ventilation system to save lives of respiratory patients admitted in the hospitals or Home-care patients. To simplify the operation we have used a mobile app to control the device. This would provide isolation to the patient and 100% protection to healthcare providers and family members.

The App provides a real-time display of the breath pattern graphs and other critical lung parameters. Each breath of the patient is recorded and transmitted to the doctors via a connected App to enable telemedicine support. Jeevan Lite can perform both invasive and non-invasive ventilation across a comprehensive set of modes and settings. It can be used for pediatric and geriatric patients and works on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries uninterrupted for 5 hours. The device also has a provision for attaching an oxygen cylinder and can operate on its own in ambient air (during emergencies).

Critical conditions such as shortness of breath due to infectious diseases infection like COVID-19 are common even in rural areas, but one has to travel about 30~40 km to reach a tertiary care hospital. Devices like ventilators are sophisticated and require qualified training before one can use them on patients. Appointing a pulmonologist for every PHC is impossible in a country like India where doctor to patient ratio is 1:1456. Moreover, in PHC we do have frequent power failure hence using electric medical devices will be a challenge. When a patient's health deteriorates we need to move them hence we need a portable device.

The only option available for stabilizing the patient with shortness of breath is approaching a tertiary care hospital via ambulance. Due to a lack of healthcare resources in rural areas, the rural population is forced to seek medical treatment in neighboring urban areas. Ironically, since specialist services are not accessible in rural areas, this becomes particularly necessary in the event of severe injuries resulting in trauma. This could include going to a local hospital or district headquarters, for example. The problem in the current method is the availability of adequate and timely ambulances facilities. As the patient is admitted to the city hospital, the whole family has to travel and stay there which majorly affects the economic condition of the villagers and increases the burden of debt on their shoulders.

JeevanLite can solve all these problems and the patients can be given treatment for critical illness even in PHCs, a single doctor can monitor 50+ patients remotely. Every breath of the patient is detected by Jeevan lite and smartly provides synchronous breathing to the patient using the JVSync feature.

About 40-60% of ICU hospitalization cost is taken by ventilators for a patient. Most of the cost is used by the hospital for expensive ventilator and their maintenance. Due to the ease of maintenance of JeevanLite, the cost of ventilation paid by patients will indirectly reduce and will lessen the economic burden on the patient. Also, tier 2 and small-town clinics cannot afford ventilators, there we plan to enter with our subscription model, this will enhance the accessibility of medical devices for all.

We have successfully finished the device bench testing using our in-house bench test equipment Fluke Gas flow analyzer.  Device user feedback has been collected from 12+ hospitals in southern India. 

Collaborated with United States Agency for International Development(USAID) to manufacture and distribute Jeevan Lite ventilators to the hospitals in Tier 2/3/4 to tackle public health crisis owing to COVID-19.

This is done under the Program entitled “Partnerships for affordable Health, access, and longevity (PAHAL)”.

The key value proposition of our device is the simplicity of use and handling, even an untrained nurse/caretaker can easily handle our device. The ease of handling 40-50 patients by a single pulmonologist will reduce the workload of the doctor by 40% and can provide better care for the patient as they can monitor the patient's change in health condition every second rather than every day. No new infrastructural changes required for our device apart from a wifi connection.

This IoT-based remote monitoring would change the accessibility of medical devices in tier 2/3 cities and rural areas.

We are estimating to serve about 1 million people from the first 12 months In the next five years, our goal is to impact one billion people globally with our accessible and affordable respiratory solutions.

Monitoring, Evaluation, And Learning:

The MEL plan shall include but not limited to the following indicators:
● Number of facilities in which Aerobiosys ventilator systems were deployed
● Number of patients served through Aerobiosys ventilator systems in intervention facilities
● Number of COVID-19 patients requiring ventilation who were on Aerobiosys systems
● Percentage of patients who need ventilation who used Aerobiosys
● Number of breakdowns or service calls registered by hospitals for Aerobiosys

Directors: 2

Full-time staff: 10 

Interns: 5

 Regulatory and clinical validationConsultants: 2

We have a diverse team with skills and expertise that spans Execution and planning to Product design and software development.  Our team has doctors with 10+ years of experience and engineers with great skills to build anything that is cutting edge and has huge potential for a disruptive market.

Both the founders have been the Biodesign Innovation fellow, a one-year residential Program of the Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship, IIT Hyderabad.

They both have developed the Duo-vent, an intelligent ventilation system that can provide lung isolation and independent controlled ventilation of both the lungs for patients with irregular consolidation. 

 J. Cyril Antony,(CTO) is an Electronics and Communication Engineer (BITS Pilani). Has experience in developing sensor-based oxygen cylinders, Dialysis reprocessing unit, and other medical devices at IIT Madras Research Park. He leads the product development team.

Rajesh Thangavel (CEO), an alumnus of IIT Bombay with a Masters in Biotechnology, has experience in Computational Genomics and Viral Pathology, worked as Faculty of Biological Science in an academic institution of Bangalore. Currently, he takes care of the Business Development and Operation of the company.

Prof. Renu John, Biomedical Engineering department IIT Hyderabad and Co-head of Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship is the Technical Advisor of the Team. He constantly guides and supports the team personally and at a time helps in bringing the technical experts from the medical device industry.

Dr Ashima Sharma, a renowned pulmonologist who heads the critical care department in Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad. Her inputs have been used for clinical validation and design inputs.

Aerobiosys aims to create a huge impact in Medical Device Market with its innovative and affordable products. By partnering with MIT Solve, we will get exert mentorship on the project, funding opportunities, and marketing in the SOLVE community about our device and probable collaborator of different geographic. 

We would like to partner with Private and government hospitals and Biomedical Research Institute for Technical support.

 The lack of trained clinicians and bulky devices makes it difficult to provide ICU-based care in refugee areas. But using Jeevan Lite we can solve this problem easily our device suits perfectly for deployment in refugee areas due to its effortless portability, 5 hrs battery back, and IoT-based remote monitoring feature. A doctor from the city can give ICU-grade care to the patient with minimum interaction with the nurses on the field.

We aim to automate the operation of the ventilator using the patient data such as SpO2, heart rate, Arterial Blood gas level, XRAY/CT scan, and the partial CO2 level in the lung. This data can be applied to our novel AI algorithm to diagnose the patient's health condition and predict the recovery rate and plan the weaning of the patient from the ventilator. Moreover, this will help to provide accurate parameter suggestions to the clinicians with the patient heath data. 

Mechanical Ventilation is the key device required in pandemic situations as most of the pathogens affect the lung and lead to shortness of breath. During such calamities, the existing heavy devices are difficult to move, require expert training to operate, and are expensive. But JeevanLite is portable, affordable, and has IoT based monitoring system which makes the whole operation easy and accessible. Hence our innovations is qualified for the Global Fund Prize.