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Health Informatics

40 years of developing software and apps for medicine and personal health

Mark Leavitt
In 1970s, Doctor, Doctor!, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents

Med School in Miami

1977-1979

On Old Olympus’ Towering Top…

Just how did the University of Miami magically compress the usual four years of medical school into just two? Well, if you taught beginner swimming by throwing everyone into the deepest end of the pool, then awarding diplomas to any survivors, you’d have the basic idea.

While the “basic sciences” would normally be covered in two years of lectures and labs, we had them crammed into 9 months. For the PhD-to-MD students with doctorates in the biologic sciences, it was intense but doable. But for those from pure engineering backgrounds  — bereft of pre-med courses such as organic chemistry — the only way to survive was with intensive memorization. Mnemonics — unforgettable sayings whose first letters correspond to the names you’re trying to memorize — were key. And I created over 1500 flash cards, flipping through them late into every night.

Pocketing my first medical informatics invention

Emerging from the 9 month onslaught of lectures, it was time for clinical rotations, in which the junior medical student’s role is to gather all the data  surrounding every patient, and be able to instantly and flawlessly report it to the more senior residents and attending physicians – any time, any place.

Scribbled index cards were in common use, but I wanted something more compact and organized. So I designed and built the custom plexiglas pocket clipboard, shown here. I had index cards printed with a grid and punched in the 4 corners, to keep penciled-in data organized in rows and columns. Each patient had a problem list, med list, history and physical, and lab flowsheet all on a single card.

With the clipboard back transparent, I kept critical info (drug doses, telephone extensions, etc) on the back of the bottom card for instant access. Those two plastic arches had a thin gap at the top, letting me insert or remove any card in the stack with the flick of one hand. There was one side effect: notoriety. Whenever the attending doc asked for more detailed patient data, the ward team just turned to me, “the clipboard guy”.

Mark Leavitt
In 1980s, Doctor, Doctor!, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents, Radio Daze

A Medical Residency in Portland

1979-1982

How I learned to hate paper medical charts…

I chose Oregon Health & Science University for my residency. Susie’s health was declining so we chose Portland to be near her family.

A few weeks into internship at the Portland VA, I was summoned at 2 AM to “pronounce” a patient. Being my first time, I was very careful to check for vital signs and confirm the chart matched the patient bracelet before signing the certificate. Paged again at 3 AM, I was told it was also my responsibility to call the family. Trudging back to the ward, I took the chart handed to me and called the number on the next-of-kin form. The daughter was shocked, but I did my best to console her. After another fitful hour of sleep, I was paged again to find the daughter had arrived and now confronted me with her declaration that “my father’s not dead!” My own heart stopped — had I missed a faint heartbeat? She led me to a different patient room, where a father wondered why his daughter seemed so surprised to see him.

At my 3 AM call, I’d been handed the wrong chart, with the same, common last name. The daughter was so happy to find her Dad alive, she didn’t lodge a complaint, but I was deeply mortified. I already disliked the messiness of paper medical charts, but this took my aversion to a new level. It probably set the stage for my 30-year career endeavor to bring medical charts into the computer age.

 

A novel form of doctor/patient communication

In my senior residency year, we had a patient in the VA ICU with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a rapidly progressive paralysis that ascends from the legs upward through the body. With meticulous care there can be a full recovery over many weeks, but the “locked-in” phase of complete paralysis can be psychological torture. We could only guess at what he wanted or needed and his suffering was undeniable.

When his family visited, I asked them about his experience as a WW II veteran. When they reported he was a submarine radio operator, a light bulb blinked on in my brain. I asked him if he knew Morse code, and he blinked once for yes, but trying to blink his eyes in Morse code quickly exhausted him. So I examined him to see what other muscle strength he had left, and found he could still clench his jaw slightly. I donned a glove, put one finger between his teeth, and asked him to try sending Morse code that way. Immediately he squeezed out HOW DO YOU DO. THANK YOU !

I built a crude Morse code key using tongue depressor sticks, a switch, and buzzer. With this he could send clean Morse code, and became quite chatty with me! A Morse code chart over the bed helped the nurses understand him, though he had to send very slowly. Finally able to express his needs, he made it through the locked-in phase to a full recovery.

Mark Leavitt
In 1980s, Doctor, Doctor!, Grand Tour, Health Informatics

Docs just wanna have fun

1981-1989

Clinical Simulations on the Apple ][+

The Apple II+ personal computer appeared during my residency (1979-1982) and I wanted one badly. Susie feared it was just an expensive toy ($1200 was more than a month’s pay for a resident) but gave in, bless her soul. After playing with the Flight Simulator program, I became convinced that clinical simulators could be useful — and even fun — in medical education. So off I went on this side project during any spare time I could scrape together.

By the time I finished residency, I had created HeartSim, a cardiac electrophysiology simulation, and Condition Critical, an intensive care case simulation. I installed them on a computer in the ICU’s call room so fellow residents could try them out, but they attracted even more attention from sales reps of medical device and pharmaceutical companies. They wanted customized, trademarked versions for use at convention booths.

MedicaLogic is born

I created the customized program, adding a scoring system based on the player’s treatment efficacy: student, intern, resident, attending, and so on. Viewing this as a fun educational project, I offered the Eli Lilly reps the software on cassette tape (as a floppy disk drive was beyond my budget) for free. But they needed multiple copies, on diskettes, so we turned it into a barter deal: they bought me a disk drive, and I delivered the program on floppy disks.

After the convention, I heard that the convention organizers had asked Lilly to close down the simulation games during presentation hours, because attendees were lining up to play these games instead of going to the presentations. Apparently, when experienced physicians received a “student” rating, they kept coming back to play until they could level-up to the status they deserved!

I incorporated MedicaLogic in 1985 to put this activity on a more robust business footing. Eventually there were simulations for diabetes, cardiac transplantation, infectious disease, and other clinical scenarios. When Lilly learned I was working on Electronic Medical Record software, a new chapter would begin.

Mark Leavitt
In 1980s, Doctor, Doctor!, Grand Tour, Health Informatics

Electronic Medical Records: 1st Generation

1982-1985

With residency complete, I rented space in the basement of St. Vincent Hospital to launch a solo practice in Internal Medicine. I’d been pondering  how to program the Apple II+ to improve practice efficiency and patient satisfaction. Three needs stood out: problem list maintenance, medication/prescription management, and customized info printouts for the patient. During those early months, the appointment book had plenty of gaps, and I spent them writing code in Apple Basic.

I had wide printer paper manufactured with perforations; it would tear apart into a letter-sized page and 3 prescription slips. As each visit ended, I updated the patient’s problem and medication lists, checked off any necessary refills, and selected from a list of information handouts for various conditions. Zing, zing went the Epson dot matrix printer. Then I handed the patient a summary of their diagnoses and medications, educational information, follow-up instructions, and a stack of neatly printed prescriptions.

Patients loved these handouts, and my practice grew as they showed their friends what a modern doctor they had!  But of course there were limitations. A floppy disk could only hold about 100 patient records, so it required disk swapping (e.g. A-E, F-J, K-O, P-T, U-Z) as the practice grew. Text notes were typed on a word processor, but there wasn’t room to store them on floppy disks, so they were printed out and kept in conventional paper charts. At best this was a computer-assisted, but not fully digital, record system.

So I had to wait for technology to catch up to my dreams. I bought a Kaypro-10, the first hard-disk PC, but it proved a dead end. When the IBM-PC/XT arrived, I abandoned Apple Basic in favor of dBase II, a high-level relational database language. Finally, low-cost networking arrived, supporting data-sharing between PCs installed at the front desk, in exam rooms, and in my office. It was time to create the next generation EMR.

Mark Leavitt
In 1980s, Doctor, Doctor!, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents, Wearables for Health

Desperation is the Mother of Invention

1983-1985

While I was busy building up my internal medicine practice and side business in clinical software, my wife Susie’s health was deteriorating as the complications from 20 years of Type I (insulin-dependent) diabetes accumulated. Home blood glucose monitoring was becoming available, and it was hoped that more precise control of insulin dosage could forestall complications, but data management remained primitive and paper logbook-based.

In hopes of helping Susie record and visualize her blood glucose data, I added a remote terminal to my Apple II+, consisting of a TV set mounted into the wall of the kitchen and a light pen built from plans in Byte Magazine. The built-in TV made the kitchen look high-tech, and the light pen let her enter her blood glucose without using a keyboard. The software could print out a log for visits to her physician, who found the graphs printed on curly thermal paper occasionally helpful.

Despite attempts at careful glucose control, the complications accelerated, eventually leading to end-stage kidney failure, treated with at-home peritoneal dialysis. There was no invention I could come up with to overcome this setback. All I could do was help manage the thrice-daily sterile drain/refill procedures and make sure the required medical supplies were always on hand.

When severe hyperparathyroidism then developed as a complication of the renal failure, Susie underwent surgery on her neck to remove the overactive glands, but the outcome was disastrous. She was left with vocal cord paralysis requiring a permanent tracheostomy, taking away her ability to speak while recovering. Finally, this was something I could help with. I put a 555 oscillator and small speaker into a brass tube, directing the sound output through a smaller soft rubber tube. With the tube in the corner of her mouth, she could create speech with a fairly intelligible albeit robotic-sounding voice. I found the gadget still in my “junk box” 35 years later.

Complications continued to set in, and she passed away in 1985.

Mark Leavitt
In 1980s, Doctor, Doctor!, Grand Tour, Health Informatics

Electronic Medical Records: 2nd Generation

1986-1992

By the mid-80’s, PC hardware and software had advanced enough to put a networked workstation in every room of the medical office, sharing data from a relational database stored on a centralized hard disk drive. So I set out to write the next generation of my EMR software.

GUIs (graphical user interfaces) weren’t yet in wide use, and many experts argued that doctors would never use keyboards, but I rejected that opinion. I figured that doctors resisted keyboards more because of “secretarial stigma” than from an inability to learn touch-typing; and since any clinician using an EMR regularly would soon become an expert user, an efficient keyboard command interface would serve them well.

After creating and using the 2nd generation EMR in my own office, it attracted the attention of my educational software customer, Eli Lilly. With two new recombinant DNA drugs on the market, they asked me to create EMR software to support specialists using those products. Over the next several years, I developed Humabase for doctors treating diabetes, and Growthbase for pediatric endocrinologists treating growth hormone deficiencies. Specialized features included the ability to print Lilly’s educational handouts on demand, upload and analyze data from home glucose meters, calculate dosages, and create individualized children’s growth charts. Lilly distributed the software gratis to doctors as an educational service (though that might not be acceptable today) and it was warmly embraced. A handful of doctors became so attached to it that I found copies still in use 30 years later!

While Lilly was distributing its specialized versions of the EMR for free, I built a more general-purpose version for my own office, which became a kind of showplace for computer applications in ambulatory care. Among its off-the-wall features:

  • Tracking and analysis of patient waiting times at every step by tapping into the chart holders and room signal lights
  • Nurse and assistant call buttons with escalating alerts designed to minimize patient waiting times
  • Background music in exam rooms that faded in/out automatically on my arrival, with music selections tailored to the patient’s age cohort
  • After-hours dial-in chart access; using an early cell phone, I could enter touchtones and the computer would read out my patient’s problems, medications, and allergies

When I demonstrated this at conventions, it generated so much interest I decided to try marketing the EMR myself. It soon became clear that my marketing, sales and implementation skills were woefully inadequate. The product name kept changing (Mark-20, System II, ClinicaLogic) as did the sales model (software-only? software-hardware bundles? fully-installed turnkey?). I needed help.

By 1993 two founders of Mentor Graphics — Rick Samco and David Moffenbeier — offered to join, fund, and help grow MedicaLogic, but I’d have to leave medical practice and become a full-time CEO. Once again I left a comfortable career behind for a riskier path. It would prove to be the adventure of a lifetime.

Mark Leavitt
In 1990s, 2000s, Doctor, Doctor!, Grand Tour, Health Informatics

The Accidental CEO

1993-2003

In 1993, Rick Samco and David Moffenbeier, two of the early founders of Mentor Graphics, joined me. At Mentor, they had been through all phases of a fast-growing business, but my only experience was managing a handful of staff in my medical office. With physicians being the key customers for our EMR, they insisted I leave my medical practice and be MedicaLogic’s full-time CEO. Thus began my 10 year on-the-job learning experience.

My comfort zone had been as a solo programmer writing software. Now that was over, because we needed a larger team to move quickly, upgrading from a character-based program in MS-DOS to a more modern graphical user interface. By 1994 this team had created Logician, a fully-featured EMR running on Microsoft Windows. Records were securely stored on an Oracle database back-end.

It was the CEO’s job to articulate the company’s vision to potential investors — a big change from writing code in my basement at night. I had to go from being a reluctant public speaker to a confidence-inspiring leader. Thanks to Dave and Rick’s track records, by 1995 we were pitching to the venture capital firms of Silicon Valley. Sequoia Capital and other firms were sufficiently convinced to plunk down several million dollars for our first round. Later rounds brought in even more capital.

What next? Well, of all the careers I’d ever dreamed of, “salesperson” was never one of them, but now I was needed as a key sales asset. Doctors, nurses, and healthcare leaders wanted to hear a physician explain the benefits of an EMR. I morphed into a road warrior, delivering conference presentations, EMR seminars, and outright sales pitches to prospects across the country.

Going Public

Our sales kept doubling every year, putting us on the Inc 500’s list of the fastest growing companies for 3 years in a row while we acquired marquee customers, even including the NASA astronaut program. But the late 90’s dot-com boom drove the expectations for startup companies even higher. “Get big and go public, or go home” was the challenge, and we accepted it, joining the parade of companies preparing for an IPO in 1999.

While the IPO may be considered the holy grail by many entrepreneurs, for me it just felt like a necessity of the moment we lived in, and it was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measures. Once public, we joined the frantic wave of mergers and acquisitions underway, buying Medscape, which operated both physician- and consumer-facing medical news websites, a digital records transcription firm, and smaller companies with technologies (such as electronic prescribing) that rounded out our offerings.

Within months, the dot-com bubble popped, dragging the NASDAQ market — and all newly public companies — down with it. Customer confidence and sales deflated along with the stock price. We sold off Medscape and slashed expenses while we searched for a corporate buyer that might recognize the value of our product and customer base, if not our stock certificates.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, as I drove to the Portland airport to fly to a meeting with General Electric executives about an acquisition, the news came on the radio. The staff at our Medscape office in New York were shell-shocked but unhurt. Beyond that, time just stopped.

GE did eventually acquire MedicaLogic in 2002, but by then it required going through a bankruptcy proceeding to clear up various liabilities. The acquisition restored customer confidence, and the EMR product, renamed Centricity, remained one of the leading products in the ambulatory care market for many years to come.

My personal fit with the customs of a huge corporation was not ideal, but I was intrigued when serving as GE’s representative on various healthcare IT policy initiatives. So after 18 months with GE, I departed for the nonprofit healthcare IT sector, thinking it would provide a relatively calm respite after my saga as CEO of a publicly held company. Instead, yet another adventure lay ahead.

Mark Leavitt
In 2000s, Grand Tour, Health Informatics

Adventures in Health IT Policy

2004-2014

Certification Commission for Health Information Technology

In 2003, I became Medical Director at HIMSS, the Health Information Management Systems Society, a nonprofit trade and educational association. In this role I organized various committees and events to spread the word about the benefits of electronic medical records. But in 2004, things became more serious: a National Coordinator for Health IT (informallly called the Health IT Czar) was appointed by then-President Bush. The first National Coordinator, David Brailer, MD, PhD, immediately published a strategic plan for speeding up health IT adoption, with a key element: government-approved testing and certification of EHRs (renaming EMRs to EHRs was another thing he did).

HIMSS and other health IT organizations felt strongly that any such effort should come from the private sector, so we quickly recruited a blue-ribbon panel to demonstrate our readiness, and somehow I was named Chairman. Simultaneously, the Federal government announced a Request for Proposal for an organization to develop standards and processes for testing and certification. We called our panel the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (with the acronym CCHIT), drafted a proposal, and won a three-year federal contract beginning in 2005. Leading a nonprofit, 501C(3) organization under a federal contract was the complete opposite to presiding over a private-sector for-profit company. Every decision and relationship had to be completely transparent. The work of drafting our standards was done by over 300 volunteer subject matter experts, in a multi-stage process with opportunities for public comment at every step. We held Town Halls at conferences, and Town Calls online, to communicate with all stakeholders many times each year.

Once CCHIT’s first Ambulatory EHR certification program was Federally approved in 2006, every medical setting and specialty clamored for an extension to their domain, keeping us very busy and raising our visibility. I provided testimony at Congressional hearings to report on our progress, and appeared on the list of the “Most Powerful Executives in Health Care”. Under newly-elected President Obama, legislation was drafted offering $30 billion in incentives to healthcare providers adopting EHRs — providing they were certified. CCHIT had a front-row seat to this legislative process, being experts on certification, but with so much money on the table, the pressures only became more intense, and the weekly cross-country travel (I’d hit the million-mile flyer mark) adversely impacted my health. So I decided to retire in 2010, although I continued to consult for CCHIT until 2014. Soon afterward, with its mission complete, CCHIT wrapped up its work and ceased operations.

Mark Leavitt
In 2010s, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents, Modeling and Making, Wearables for Health

Quantified Self

2011-2018

After experiencing a cardiac event in 2007, I became intensely interested in the science of health behaviors and habits, and began experimenting with technology to support self-tracking and self-improvement. In 2011, I discovered Portland’s local Quantified Self meetups, eventually becoming one of the QS organizers, and giving presentations at their national and international meetings. In a QS presentation, an individual must describe their own self-tracking experiments, reporting three things:

  • What did you do?
  • How did you do it?
  • What did you learn?

This first presentation was delivered at the worldwide QS Conference in Amsterdam.

This second presentation describes my HealthESeat project, an effort to make “seat time” less harmful by encouraging me to exercise my legs while performing computer work.

HealthESeat was a “full stack” project. It included furniture modifications, proximity and rotation sensors, an LED biofeedback light, an Arduino microcontroller, and finally PC software to accumulate data and present visualizations of trends over time. Later, I added an EKG monitor for heart rate variability measurements.

I’ve found Heart Rate Variability (HRV) to be one of the most interesting physiological measurements. Research has associated it with physical health as well as psychological resilience.  I’ve experimented with ways to measure it — using either EKG or PPG biometric sensors — and ways to use it as real-time biofeedback, as well as long term tracking of trends, as described in this QS presentation from 2015.

I’ve seen benefits from my self-tracking efforts, but an even greater benefit has come from meeting such interesting people in the QS community. These associations planted the seeds for my post-retirement business, Wearable Health Labs LLC.

Mark Leavitt
In 2010s, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents, Modeling and Making

This could be the start of something big…

2012-Now

The Startup Ecosystem: mentoring, investing, incubators and accelerators

Startups — newly founded companies — are prized as engines of economic growth. While Oregon’s “fertility rate” hasn’t approached that of the SFO Bay Area, an impressive number of companies have started here. This Silicon Forest Universe chart, circa 2002, illustrated how as a handful of Oregon tech companies grew large, then spawned constellations of new startups — sometimes as formal corporate spinoffs, but more often just founded by former employees of the large companies — and the cycle continues.

Soon after I founded MedicaLogic, I was fortunate to be joined by veterans of Mentor Graphics; a decade prior to that, Mentor had been founded by some former Tektronix employees. That’s one pathway for talent, but there’s much more to the startup ecosystem.

My friend Rick Turoczy, whom I was privileged to have working with me at both MedicaLogic and CCHIT, is now a leader in Portland’s startup ecosystem. If you want to know what’s happening there, Rick’s SiliconFlorist blog is the place to go.

But Rick hasn’t just been writing about startups; for almost a decade he’s been helping them grow, as head of the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE). I signed up as a mentor, and I’ve lost count of how many entrepreneurs I’ve enjoyed talking with as a result of that connection. In 2013, I was a mentor for the Nike+ Accelerator by TechStars and I’ve continued a relationship with my mentee from there, Sprout at Work, now a leader in digital corporate wellness services.

When I work with startups, sometimes I make a modest “angel” investment along with an advisor role, but only when I believe the company can have a positive impact on human health. In many cases I offer technical consulting to worthwhile startups pro bono for the simple joy of it, and there are several examples in my later posts.

Mark Leavitt
In 2010s, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents, Wearables for Health

Show Me Some Spine!

2013-2018

My first wearable project: SpineTracker

At the Quantified Self 2012 meeting at Stanford University, I met Esther Gokhale, an expert posture teacher who had been helping people with back pain.

As I studied her research, I saw how important the posture of the spine was in her methods, and I wondered if technology could be designed to precisely measure and display a person’s posture in real time. I had training and experience in engineering and medicine, but my electronic hardware  skills were decades out-of-date, and I’d never designed a wearable device. To her great credit, Esther decided to give me a chance, and Wearable Health Labs LLC was born.

During this saga, I learned to design PC boards, have them fabricated, place tiny surface mount components using a forceps and microscope, and reflow solder the boards using a $10 hot plate and homebrew temperature controller. Then I tried some primitive Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to design prototype enclosures to be 3D printed. And finally: coding firmware for Bluetooth radio modules and software for laptops to receive that data wirelessly (I had not yet learned to write smartphone apps). After 5 years, many prototype iterations (shown in the accompanying slide deck), and considerable help from other consultants, we had a finished product. The video below shows the Spine Tracker in use.

Mark Leavitt
In 2010s, Goodies for Oldies, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents, Modeling and Making, Wearables for Health

Badges of Honor

2015-2018

A Wireless, Wearable Assist for Assisted Living

In 2015 I connected with Bill Reed and Lydia Lundberg, innovative pioneers in the assisted living industry. At their company, Elite Care, Bill had been searching for technology solutions that could satisfy the conflicting demands of safety vs. autonomy for their residents, but found no suitable commercial products. The staff and residents were already wearing identification badges, so Bill hoped we might develop these into Bluetooth wireless “smart” badges that could enhance residents’ safety and comfort, as well as staff efficiency.

Besides being nametags, the badges functioned as emergency call buttons. We experimented with auditory feedback from the call button when pressed — a short audio recording of a loved one reassuring them that help was on the way — but this didn’t prove helpful. More successful was the inclusion of accelerometer, gyro, and temperature sensors to measure activity and environment. And finally, the badges could serve as locators. With Bluetooth receiving stations (“hubs”) installed throughout the facility, a central server could estimate the location of each badge based on signal strength at each hub. The badges could also act as receivers to detect which other badges were nearby, potentially providing data on social interactions and staff presence with a resident.

Early prototype PCB

Early prototype case

Final prototype PCB

Final prototype case

Mark Leavitt
In 2010s, Doctor, Doctor!, Goodies for Oldies, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Inventions and Patents, Modeling and Making, Wearables for Health

Filling a KNeed

2016-2021

Wireless, Wearable Tracker for Post-Op Knee Rehabilitation

Over a million joint replacement surgeries are performed annually in the U.S., a number that’s expected to explode as my fellow boomers injure or wear out their knees and hips. While the surgery and joint implants have been continually refined, the rehabilitation phase at home hasn’t benefited from technology — yet. Orthini, a Portland startup, was formed to address this need. I came on board as a consultant to create a proof-of-concept prototype. Think of it a specialized version of a fitness tracker that measures knee range-of-motion and rehabilitation activity during the critical first few post-operative weeks at home.

Our design goals included light weight, ease of applying/removing, and no restriction of joint movement or visibility of the healing wound site. We also hoped to make it easier to apply a cold pack, and if possible, monitor the use of that as well.

Our brilliant apparel consultant, LaJean Lawson, came up with a lightweight harness that strapped to the thigh and calf, leaving the knee exposed. The electronics are hidden within the “smart buckles” that fasten the harness. This was my first experience designing an enclosure that progressed all the way to injection molding. The electronic design using a Bluetooth module and accelerometer sensors was more straightforward, but sensors to monitor the wearing of the device itself and application of the cold pack required some novel ideas. The US Patent Office agreed, finally issuing a patent in 2021 (3 years is par for that course).

Smart Buckle

KneeCoach Assembly

KneeCoach on Manikin Knee

KneeCoach Patent

Mark Leavitt
In 2020s, Goodies for Oldies, Grand Tour, Health Informatics, Modeling and Making, Wearables for Health

Sensors for Seniors

2020-2022

Pandemic Project #1: Wireless sensors and gateway for CareBank

The Covid-19 pandemic was devastating to public health, but it also stimulated the development of new technologies hoping to re-establish our social connections. I met Claude Goodman in March 2020, learned of his CareBank project, and gladly took on the challenge of developing improved wireless sensors for that system.

The concept of a Bluetooth Low Energy module and motion sensor was not unusual, but long-range transmission, long battery life, and ease of battery replacement by an elder were more demanding requirements. We used BLE 5.1 and careful antenna design to extend the range and a low data rate to achieve >1yr of battery life. To change the battery, the user just slips off a silicone band (blue band in the rendering) and slides a new coin cell battery into a slot.

The next challenge was reliably relaying the sensor data to the CareBank servers in the cloud. While an up-to-date smartphone with an Internet data connection could do that job, it wasn’t realistic to assume every elder had such a smartphone always operational. As an alternative, I developed a Bluetooth-5-to-cellular gateway prototype. To maximize range, antenna placement was carefully optimized, and the communication link uses positive acknowledgement and retransmission to overcome dropouts. The gateway’s 3D-printed enclosure plugs into a standard USB charging brick, and the combination plugs into a wall outlet like a nightlight.

When it was time to manufacture a prototype run of 75 sensors, we hit one more challenge: the 2021 global semiconductor shortage. I learned how to source components from dwindling stocks in multiple countries and have the PCBs fabricated and assembled overseas. We were lucky; some key chips now have a one year lead time.