Low-Cost Digitization of Saline Dropper Set

Problem Statement: In developing countries like Bangladesh, most of the people seek in-patient medical treatment from Govt. medicals, where the ratio of clinicians to patient ratio is very low including the lack of proper medical resources. One of the most faced problems in Govt. or local medicals/clinics is the proper monitoring of the saline drops going into patient’s body. The available saline dropper sets are manually controlled by nurses, but often the drop count goes wrong which may cause serious harm to the patients, especially when it is required to maintain a certain drops/count for some nutrition elements such as calcium, potassium, etc. being injected to body. The over-injection or under-injection of such nutrition drops not only fails the treatment goal but also may cause serious harm to patient body. Therefore, a digital monitoring device for accurately maintaining the dose and automatic alarm system to notify if the drop-count goes wrong is extremely necessary.

Description: We expect to develop a low-cost microcontroller based system to sense the saline drops, count it and regulate it through the user-given value while the current and expected count will be displayed in real-time on a LCD display.

Required Qualifications: The potential candidate is expected to have engineering or relevant technological background to work in this project. Experience to work with microcontroller-based embedded system would be an added advantage, but not mandatory. He/she must have a high passion to contribute to a real-world problem with their skills and knowledge by realizing the current scenario of neonatal heath care in developing countries.

Contact: Dr. Kafiul Islam, Project Supervisor; E-mail: kafiiut@gmail.com