Dr. Jaques Reifman, Director, Biotechnology High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute (BHSAI) at the Telemedicine & Advanced technology Research Center (TATRC) https://www.tatrc.org, at Ft Detrick, realizes that early detection of exposure to pathogens from biological weapons or emerging infectious diseases is critical for maintaining military and population health.
The TATRC team developed the 2B-Healthy app to use for automated real time detection of abnormal vital signs. A malaria infection challenge was chosen to study because it has established clinical signs to detect automated real time model with a well- defined time course and symptoms of infection, direct clinical and military relevance, a long incubation period that allows time to make predictions, and early and late stage diagnostic tests approved by FDA.
This study used wearable technology such as a Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch to collect continuous vital sign data from volunteers, and the data wirelessly was transmitted to the Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone.
Consisting of commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and customized software, the 2B-Healthy app pairs a non-invasive wearable device that continuously collects vital sign data with a proprietary algorithm to identify physiological changes associated with abnormal events including infections.
The successful development of the 2B-Healthy app enables the U.S military to carry out automated rapid detection for service member infections including SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals before they can infect others. This is essential to maintaining readiness during the current pandemic as well as future ones.
Information for the article 2B-Healthy: BHSAI’s AI System for Early Warning of Adverse Conditions in Humans appeared in the July 2021 issue of TATRC Times. For more information on this project, contact Dr. Jaques Reifman, at Jaques.reifman.civ@mail.mil.