Student innovations transform local hospitals with health technologies

On February 14, three innovative health-tech solutions developed by University of Waterloo students each received $5,000 in funding from Velocity’s Health Innovation Challenge to further develop and pivot their solutions for real-world settings.

The challenge, in partnership with the Grand River Hospital Foundation, educates students on pressing health-care challenges faced by patients and health-care workers, while offering students the opportunity to design solutions for the local community.  

More than 130 Waterloo students participated in the 10-day challenge at the Innovation Arena to address critical health-care challenges facing hospitals in Canada.

“We watched you dive headfirst into real-world health-care problems, and you’ve taken risks, putting in countless hours to develop solutions. That determination and creativity is exactly what the future of health care needs,” says Carla Girolametto, integrated director of innovation and research at GRH and SMGH.

From supporting bariatric and cancer patients to streamlining the surgical tray reassembly process, Velocity announced three winning teams with the potential to further develop and validate their solutions into a minimum viable product in the future.

AdaptAir cushioned system prevents pressure ulcers

“Around 25 per cent of bariatric patients develop pressure ulcers during their stay at the hospital and can be preventable — so why is it still happening?” says Simran Singh, a second-year biomedical engineering student at Waterloo.  “That’s because one in three nurses are injured while mobilizing patients. This makes patients feel like a burden whenever they need to ask their nurses for help, and this is not the type of environment we need in the hospital.”

AdaptAir is designed to assist bariatric patients and reduce the strain on nurses by preventing pressure ulcers and enhancing patient mobility. It features a cushioned mattress inside a nylon spandex case with two main components: remote-controlled mobility support and a pressure-sensitive air cushion system.  

This system uses real-time data to relieve pressure on high-risk areas, promoting patient comfort and independence. AdaptAir’s cushioned mattress can be easily integrated into hospital workflows, allowing patients to adjust their position with a simple press of a button, reducing the need for multiple nurses. The silk bed sheet covering the nylon spandex case can be removed and washed or wiped with disinfected wipes.

AdaptAir is led by a team of undergraduate students, including Singh, Mohamed Lateef, Molly Lu and Gaby Jiang Guo.  

TrayAssist streamlines surgical tray reassembly process

GRH serves more than 25,000 patients annually and relies on its Medical Device Reprocessing department to keep operating rooms running smoothly. The department ensures medical instruments are cleaned, disinfected, sterilized and reassembled daily, but the demand for consistency and speed is challenging.

“Currently, technicians are using an Excel spreadsheet with 1900 different tray configurations,” says Catherine Burns, a second-year Systems Design Engineering student. “These technicians are trained for around two years to be able to identify all these different trays. We want to make this identification process a lot easier by giving them assisted support.”

Their solution, TrayAssist, is a radio frequency identification (RFID)-based verification system that streamlines the surgical tray reassembly process. This system allows technicians to bring trays to an assembly station that automatically detects each medical instrument. TrayAssist enables technicians to focus on more critical tasks and reduce delays that can impact patient flow and hospital operations.

The team of engineering students including Burns, Tiffany Teng, Hannah Hepburn, Cheryl Li and Paige Kobzar. Having already purchased an RFID scanner, the team plans to use the $5,000 in funding to start building the software’s user interface and purchase the tags that will be attached to the medical instruments.  

OncoBuddy

OncoBuddy is a virtual support app that uses augmented reality to help cancer patients navigate their treatment journey. The app provides 3D replicas of hospital areas, creating an interactive and immersive experience for patients to familiarize themselves with their treatment environment before they even step inside the hospital.  

Participants of the Velocity Health Innovation Challenge were joined by Christy Lee, co-founder of PatientCompanion, and Michael Phillips, CEO and co-founder of Vena Medical, who shared insights on founding a company in the medical field and their own entrepreneurial journey.