SBIR Phase I: Auto Pairing Direct to Cellular Telehealth Gateway for Improved COVID-19 Home Health Monitoring Adherence

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project includes the ability to eliminate two of the primary barriers in dealing with seniors and technology: user interfaces and internet availability. The approach makes use of recent (2019) national network coverage for Narrow-Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) enabling low power, low cost access for direct to cellular low bandwidth applications. The auto pairing direct to cellular gateway provides COVID-19 diagnosed patients with the capability to effectively monitor symptoms from home resulting in improved disease impact tracking and monitoring adherence while reducing hospital demand, disease spread, and system costs over current smart phone-based system. Current systems require lengthy user training and account setup as well as cumbersome measurement data transfers using an app during each reading. This currently challenging interface would be replaced with a single device requiring no set up or direct interaction with the user. The approach greatly simplifies and streamlines the disease related measurements while reducing the time and cost of getting devices provisioned and into the end users’ hands. Although focused on COVID-19 monitoring, the technology also provides broad application for effective telemedicine adoption by seniors for chronic care monitoring. This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to provide a solution which is more cost effective and enables greater adoption and compliance for long-term, in-home, self-monitoring of seniors and at-risk populations diagnosed with COVID-19. The research goals of this project include demonstrating an auto pairing direct to cellular device that meets the requirements for COVID-19 monitoring under the global COVID-19 Emergency Response Solution. The research approach includes: demonstrating a design with optimized narrow band performance; demonstrating FCC/IC end unit certification; and demonstrating testing required for network certifications. The anticipated technical results of this Phase I project enable smartphone-based monitoring systems and a gateway into senior populations for chronic care monitoring. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.