Real-Time Internet of Medical Things System for Detecting Blood Leakage during Hemodialysis Using a Novel Multiple Concentric Ring Sensor

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 22; no. 5; p. 1988
• Main Authors: Hu, Hsiang-Wei, Liu, Chih-Hao, Du, Yi-Chun, Chen, Kuan-Yu, Lin, Hsuan-Ming, Lin, Chou-Ching
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 03.03.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Arm; Artificial Limbs; blood leakage detection; Clinical trials; COVID-19; Experiments; Fistula; Hemodialysis; Humans; Internet; Internet of Medical Things (IoMT); multi-bed monitoring system; Patient safety; Performance evaluation; Prostheses; Renal Dialysis - adverse effects; SARS-CoV-2; Sensors; Simulation; venous needle dislodgement; hemodialysis; venous needle dislodgement; Internet of Medical Things (IoMT); blood leakage detection; multi-bed monitoring system
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s22051988

Venous needle dislodgement (VND) is a major healthcare safety concern in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Although VND is uncommon, it can be life-threatening. The main objective of this study was to implement a real-time multi-bed monitoring system for VND by combining a novel leakage-detection device and IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) technology. The core of the system, the Acusense IoMT platform, consisted of a novel leakage-detection patch comprised of multiple concentric rings to detect blood leakage and quantify the leaked volume. The performance of the leakage-detection system was evaluated on a prosthetic arm and clinical study. Patients with a high risk of blood leakage were recruited as candidates. The system was set up in a hospital, and the subjects were monitored for 2 months. During the pre-clinical simulation experiment, the system could detect blood leakage volumes from 0.3 to 0.9 mL. During the test of the IoMT system, the overall success rate of tests was 100%, with no lost data packets. A total of 701 dialysis sessions were analyzed, and the accuracy and sensitivity were 99.7% and 90.9%, respectively. Evaluation questionnaires showed that the use of the system after training changed attitudes and reduced worry of the nursing staff. Our results show the feasibility of using a novel detector combined with an IoMT system to automatically monitor multi-bed blood leakage. The innovative concentric-circle design could more precisely control the warning blood-leakage threshold in any direction to achieve clinical cost-effectiveness. The system reduced the load on medical staff and improved patient safety. In the future, it could also be applied to home hemodialysis for telemedicine during the era of COVID-19.