SoftServe Announces Winner of ‘Internet of Body Things’ Competition

The winning concept uses wearable devices alongside in-home sensors to gather patient data on ‘normal’ patterns of behavior to detect anomalies in routine and identify social and health care needs.

The challenge, sponsored by SoftServe in conjunction with Code4Health, was created to identify cost effective innovations that utilize the ‘Internet of Body Things’ such as wearables and environmental sensors to provide early warning signs for individuals requiring social care in order to expedite an in-home intervention.

Dr. Koshal’s winning entry combines a waterproof wristband that will monitor indicators such as heart rate, temperature and glucose levels with sensors placed around the home to gather data on patient’s daily levels of activity and movement. This data would be transmitted to health and social carers, alerting them to changes in behavior, activity or incident, as well as available directly from the wristband.

At a basic level the proposed system would alert caregivers to patient falls, track mobility and monitor time spent outside of the home. However, collating and analyzing data from both sources will enable the early detection of minor ailments such as Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) before they escalate and require serious medical attention, thus preventing unnecessary hospital visits.

“Karan’s concept shows how the intelligent application of simple and cost effective connected technologies can provide an immediate improvement to the lives of patients while enabling them to go about their daily lives,” said Eugene Borukhovich, Senior Vice President and Healthcare Global Vertical Practice Leader, SoftServe. “Often the patients most at risk are those who don’t want to complain to caregivers, and Karan’s idea would reduce the risk of this happening and ensure it’s not too late for in-home intervention.”

Winning the award will provide access to appropriate resources for Dr. Koshal to build a minimal viable prototype of the concept over a one month period. “The aim of my idea is to give individuals the confidence to maintain their quality of life, safe in the knowledge that should their mobility or health begin to decline, their need for help will be automatically detected and acted upon. I am very much looking forward to finally making my concept a reality with the help of SoftServe's DevOps resources and expertise,” explains Dr. Koshal.

The standard of entries in the Challenge was extremely high and voting close, so VeepWorks was awarded runner-up for DREAM, its Situational Awareness Application, which provides relevant contextualized and actionable information to its users using data harvested by a unique scalable aggregation technique combining the Internet of Things (IoT) with the Internet of Humans (IoH).

SoftServe is an accredited provider of Code4Health, a program managed by NHS England to enable the best use of digital tools and technology in order to deliver safe, high quality, efficient and compassionate care. The initiative aims to educate and inform all participants in the health and care community – citizens, patients, carers, health, care and digital professionals – about the opportunities digital technology offers the healthcare market.

About NHS England

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