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Meinig School undergraduate team wins Wolfram Award at MedHacks 2017
The PEARL team (top); the device prototype in action (bottom)
Congratulations to the team of five Meinig School undergraduates who won the MedHacks 2017 Wolfram Award last month for their design of a wireless, wearable pulse oximeter for detecting drug overdose.
Crystal Lee, Shweta Modi, Alice Yan, Crystal Zhao, and Holly Zheng comprised the team that went to MedHacks, a 36 hour hackathon where students from all over gather to design and develop solutions to tackle problems in the medical/healthcare industry. The team decided to address the problem of the opioid crisis by designing a wireless, wearable device to prevent patients who are prescribed opioids from dying of overdose. Their concept device, called PEARL, was designed to transmit real-time data to a cloud that processes this information and alerts first responders if there is an anomaly (when SpO2 falls below a threshold). The discrete device repackages existing and reliable pulse ox technology into a wearable medical 'safety net' that will allow first aid to assist patients who have overdosed in a timely manner.
“Crystal Lee, one of the self-named “Pearl Girls”, says, “we named it PEARL because it’s a pulse oximeter for the earlobe. Also because it looks like an earring and, well, pearl earrings are a staple.”
The PEARL team won the Wolfram Award, which is awarded to teams that placed in the Top 15 at MedHacks. They placed in the top 7 of their competition track - Patient Quality and Safety. Learn more about the device and its conception, here.
MedHacks is a 36 hour hackathon where students from all over gather to design and develop solutions to tackle problems in the medical/healthcare industry. Teams (of up to 5 people) can choose to compete in one of three tracks: Medication Adherence, Access to Care, or Patient Quality and Safety. Teams are provided with a venue, as well as a selection of hardware and experts from various fields who are available for consulting. Between 600-700 people participated this year, with around 100 teams completing their projects in time for judging. This year’s event was hosted by Johns Hopkins University, September 8-10.
