Technology

In the 1990s, the concept known as personal health systems arose.  The purpose of this concept was to place the individual person in the center of the healthcare delivery process by managing their own health and interacting with care providers.  The goal of this concept was to raise interest in personal health status, improve the quality of care, and utilize the new technology becoming available. Part of this new technology included wearable health devices to help people to better monitor their health status both at an activity/fitness level for self-health tracking and at a medical level providing more data to clinicians with a potential for earlier diagnostic and guidance of treatment. The technology revolution in the miniaturization of electronic devices enabled the design of reliable and adaptable wearables.

The inventors have continued this miniaturization of wearable health devices revolution by developing a patch made of protein biopolymers which have better biocompatibility and are more comfortable to wear compared with synthetic polymers. As the protein biopolymer patch results in a smaller and lighter wearable device that goes on the skin as a nonobtrusive flexible patch. The invention is a wearable electronic system, called electronic skin (or E-Skin) patch, that can be attached to human body to sense physiological signals such as heartbeat rates. The detection is based on an embedded photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor, a data collection circuit, and a wireless communication module for data transfer. The patch material is made of protein biopolymers with enhanced biocompatibility and optical transparency. Existing products have the PPG sensor directly placed on the skin while the E-Skin patch has a protein layer between the sensor and skin for improved comfort.

Potential Application

Wearable health devices with increased biocompatibility and comfort.

Opportunity

According to one source, 2023, wearable health devices such as health trackers and remote patient monitoring devices will become essential and the market will increase $20 billion USD. Adoption of these technologies is being driven by improvements in remote patient monitoring technology as well as an increased adoption by medical institutions. Some forecast that up to 5 million individuals will be remotely monitored by healthcare providers by 2023.

Rowan University is looking for a partner for further development and commercialization of this technology through a license.