A Hang-and-Play Intravenous Infusion Monitoring System

Abstract

We have developed an intravenous (IV) infusion monitoring system in nursing-houses/hospitals. The system assists nurses to manage the IV infusion process by integrating hardware devices, composing of a drip-bag weight scale and a RFID/NFC tag reader, and an IV fusion monitoring software. A 6502-based microcontroller is used as a platform of connecting an s-type load cell sensor and a RFID/NFC reader. The load cell transforms tension, pulled by a drip-bag, to weak electrical signal. The electrical signal is amplified and is fed into a 16-bit A/D converter. Finally, the tension is converted to a two-byte digital weight data, ranging from 0 to 65535. The two-byte weight data and the five-byte RFID/NFC ID data are packed as a data packet, which is transmitted via UDP protocol to a data collector module of the IV infusion monitoring system. The packet is unpacked and is stored, according to the ID information in the packet, into the patient IV infusion database. A patient IV infusion indication system graphically displays all patients' IV infusion statuses on a tablet screen, such as nurses can easily read patient IV infusion information. An IV infusion notification system sends notifications of normal and abnormal IV infusion amount and rate. The most significant feature of the IV infusion monitoring system is that a nurse just places a drip-bag and initializes IV infusion process without handling any software interface. The system reads drip-bag weight dynamics and RFID/NFC tag data. The system can detect the error of a misplaced drip bag by comparing the RFID/NFC tag data of a hanged drip bag with the patient ID. In one word, the system assists that nurses manage all patients' IV infusion with a realtime IV infusion indication and a complete notification. The system can also be modified to be used in monitoring drug usage of elders in homes/nursing-houses for helping nurses manage elders' drug.