THE PROBLEM

Cardiovascular diseases are the world's leading cause of death; they are responsible for some 17.9 million deaths each year, which represent about 31% of the global mortality. According to the WHO, this mortality is set to rise to 23.6 million deaths per year by 2030. In Africa, cardiovascular diseases accounts for around 37% of all deaths. In Asia and North America, these diseases are responsible for respectively 33% and 32% of the global mortality. The most affected region is Europe where they are the source of 40% of deaths. Hypertension and diabetes are the biggest factors of these diseases, which affect even newborns causing around 125,000 deaths among children under five every year.

THE SOLUTION

The Cardio-Pad is a medical equipment that performs electrocardiogram and telemedicine. The device is mainly composed by a 7-inch touch tablet that records, process and save up to 12 leads of the heart signal coming from the patient. The heart signal is acquired through an ECG cable connected to the tablet and to 10 electrodes fixed on the skin of the patient. The device has a built-in wireless transmitter that allows transferring the patient data and receiving a diagnosis from a remote cardiologist through Wi-Fi or 3G network.

APPLICATION

A-Cardiac Exam And Real time Monitoring

1- A nurse fixes the 10 electodes of the ECG cable on the skin of the patient. The cable is connected to the tablet via a sensor box that allows the cardiopad to record 12-channels of the heart signal.

2 - 6 electodes of the wearable sensor are fixed on the chest of the athlet , the sensor senses a 3 channels ECG signal that is then transfered to the tablet via wifi.

3 - The tablet transmits ECG data via GSM to the cardiologist, for a remote interpretation that can be perfromed using a mobile application.

B-Mother And child Health

1- A nurse attachs 3 electrodes of the new born sensor on the skin of the baby who is inside the incubator. The sensor collects 3 channels of ECG signal and transmits it to the Cardio-Pad via WI-FI.

2- The Cardio-Pad processes the cardiac signal and transmits it in real time to the mother and the nurse, who can then view it on their smart watches.

KEY OF SUCCESS

A-Remote diagnosis/telemedicine.

In order to address the problem of shortage of cardiologists, we have developed a mobile application that allows specialists to receive and interpret exams carried out in remote hospitals.

How does it work?.

After performing an electrocardiogram exams using the Cardio-Pad, the nurse transmits the patient's data to a remote cardiologist. The cardiologist receives a notification of a new exam on his phone, and then runs the app. The application will then download and display the data. The specialist select an exam, proceed to interpret, and establish a diagnosis, which is transferred to the remote hospital where the corresponding exam had been carried out. The nurse in the remote hospital receives the diagnosis on the Cardio-Pad, and prints it on paper for the patient or the local doctor.

NEXT STEP : TRANSITION TO SCALE

The next step is to scale up the project in other countries of Africa and the Middle East by deploying first in Cameroon neighboring countries.This involves acquiring resources in order to produce more devices, and to market the solution in other countries or regions where people face the problem of shortage of cardiologists and where the cardiovascular diseases induced mortality rate is growing. This is the case of countries like RCA, Tchad, Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, Libya, Niger, Soudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Syria, Iraq, brasil, Mexico, Madagascar.

THE PROBLEM

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. They kill about 17.9 million people each year, equivalent to 31% of the global mortality. In the field of professional sports, there is a significant increase of these diseases, which appear as underlying cardiac irregularities that can remain hidden without a constant monitoring. They can cause cardiovascular accidents, leading to shortness of breath, loss of performance on the field, fainting and sometimes even death of the athlete. This is why currently , it becomes crucial for every professional club and each national team to have effective tools for permanent and real-time cardiac monitoring of all its athletes. In order to address this problematic , we have implemented a solution called the Cardio-Pad.

THE SOLUTION

The Cardio-Pad is a medical device that allows to perform electrocardiogram examinations and remote cardiac monitoring in real time. In addition to performing 12-channels electrocardiograms at rest, it also collects the signals and cardiac data of an athlete in motion for several hours thanks to a heart vest equipped with a real time data acquisition and wireless transmission technology. It is a transportable kit whose main element is a tablet that collects, records and processes heart signals.

The smart ECG vest is a half-size tracksuit that the athlete puts on. It is sturdy but thin enough to be worn under the jersey, both during matches and during training. It is composed of a very light electronic device including a processor, a cardiac signal amplifier and a set of electrodes to take up to 7 channels of the athlete's cardiac signal.

Thanks to an integrated transmitter, the vest transmits data in real time to the Cardio-Pad through radio frequencies. It is equipped with a battery, a memory card system allowing autonomous operation and athlete's biomedical data storage for more than 100 hours. It is optionally equipped with 5G, which allows data transmission to the cloud. This vest is also equipped with GPS, and a gyroscope to detect the position, movements and speed of athletes in real time. These features allow to study cardiac events that occur, according to the intensity of exercises.