2. Method developed to send messages using vibrations on skin

Researchers at Purdue University have developed a method to send messages in English by using vibrations on a person’s skin. The device used works by playing a specific vibration assigned to a given English ‘phone me’ or the smallest unit of sound on a user’s forearm. For each speech trait, the device is encoded to generate distinct sensations. The device is based on Haptic technology or kinesthetic communication or 3D touch that creates an experience of touch by applying forces, vibrations or motions to the user. It is developed under the guidance of Professor Hong Z. Tan,Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Purdue University.

Source: Dailyhunt

Also Read: Ten recommendations for Digital Health Interventions

3. Pocket Scanner with Infrared Rays to Determine Food Freshness

According to United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization,about 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted annually which is nearly one third of the food produced in the world. There are many reasons for this loss. A large factor – consumers discard food as they have trouble determining if a food item is still fresh and edible, especially for meat and other non-vegetarian items, which are sold with labels mentioning “sell-by-date” or “use-by date”. Considering this, the Bavarian Ministry of Food “We Rescue Food’ alliance has launched 17 initiatives, one of which is the Fraunhofer pocket scanner. Researchers at Fraunhofer Society, a German Research Foundation,are developing an infrared-based pocket scanner that will enable the consumers,supermarkets and other food handlers to determine if the food item has gone bad and its degree of ripeness.The scanner is based on high-precision near-infrared (NIR) sensor wherein the infrared beam is shined on the food and reflected light is measured across the IR spectrum. A comparison is done between the absorption spectrum from the food item and a known sample to determine whether the food item is still edible, its ripeness and even if it is a counterfeit, such as trout being passed off as salmon. This technique is already being used in labs, the challenge is to reduce the device’s size and cost. The scanner is still in the demonstrator stage and can currently be used to analyze the shelf life, ripeness of homogenous foods like potatoes, tomatoes but not a pizza with its many toppings. The team so far has worked with tomatoes and ground beef using statistical techniques to match the NIR spectra with the rate of microbial spoilage and other chemical parameters, to measure the germ count and the meat’s shelf life. In this process,the scan data is sent via Bluetooth to a cloud database for evaluation. The results of which are then sent to a mobile device app to show if the food item is still good, how much of its shelf life is left and tips on how to use the food if its sell-by-date limit has expired. Researchers intend to use hyper-spectral imaging and fusion-based approaches using color images, spectral sensors and other high spatial resolution technologies in later stages. A machine-learning algorithm, which will allow for better pattern recognition, is under development. Research team also claims that this scanning device will have wider application in other categories like wool, plastics, textiles and minerals.

Source: https://phys.org

Also Read: Health Screenings that all Women Often Avoid

4. Epiwear – A Syringe Watch

Students at Rice University have developed a very innovative device which is not much larger than the size of a wristwatch that hides a fold able epinephrine syringe inside it to take during a life-threatening medical emergency. The watch like device is known as “EPIWEAR”. It is simple to use. In case of an emergency, the user just needs to unfold it and flick the safety lever and then push a button when he/she is ready to inject the medicine into one’s thigh. The three piece folding design of the watch makes it effectively impossible to trigger the needle by accident. Also,there are plans for a case that would prevent the button from touching anything until the shot is necessary. EPIWEAR is made of 3D printed parts. The team is still working on its refinement in terms of reducing its size further and adding more watch like features to it rather than it just acting as a watch which, in reality,is an injection dispenser. So, in a nutshell EPIWEAR is a syringe watch that puts a life saving anti-allergy injection on your wrist and you never know it may become a permanent part of a person’s wardrobe sometime in the near future.

Source: www.engadget.com

Also Read: Hackers Target Patients’ Sensitive Health Data

5. Implantable Device Powered by Heartbeats Invented

A new research study from Darmouth College has shown that the heart’s motion is so powerful that it can recharge devices to save our lives. Engineers at the Thayer School of Engineering at Darmouth College, alongside clinicians at the University of Texas in San Antonio, have invented a coin-sized device that turns the kinetic energy of the heart into electricity – to power a wide range of implantable devices. Many patients rely on defibrillators, pacemakers and other life-saving implantable devices which are battery dependent and need replacement every 5 to 10 years. This procedure is costly requiring surgery and can be a source of infections and complications. With the aim to create an effective source, so that the device or implant will serve its purpose during the entire life span of the patient without the need of surgery, the research team developed this small device.The implantable device works by adding a thin piece of polymer piezoelectric film called PVDF to devices like pacemakers and other implants to convert even a small or mechanical heart motion into electricity. Thus, an energy source is created within the body nullifying the requirement of surgery for battery replacement. The team proposes to modify pacemakers to harness the kinetic energy of the lead wire that is attached to the heart, converting into electricity to continuously charge the batteries. The device is bio compatible,flexible, light weight and low profile which is scalable for future multi functionality. The results of the three year-long study were recently published in the cover story for Advanced Materials Technologies. The first round of animal studies has been completed and the team will come out with the device’s commercialization in another five years.

Source: www.inshorts.com

Also Read: Study: Awareness about Hypertension Very Low

6. ‘The Pod’ Made for Better Sleep at Night

It is a known fact that human body temperature changes during the night, and to comfort the sleeper throughout the night, an American company Eight Sleep, world’s first sleep fitness company has launched a smart bed called “THE POD”. The smart bed changes its temperature all through the night to provide better sleep to the user. The bed is based on artificial intelligence and has bio-feedback sensors which helps it to determine the best temperature for undisturbed sleep between 55 to115 degrees Fahrenheit through out the night.The bed is also equipped with an adaptive foam which consists of four distinct layers that allows it to adapt to any sleeping position to further comfort the user. The smart bed is divided into two sections, each side of the bed has its own temperature control and bio-metric tracker. The temperature is controlled through water cooling. The pod has an inbuilt reservoir known as the Hub that lets the bed – warm and cool -as per the user’s specifications with a temperature range mentioned above.An alarm can be set to wake-up the user by using the thermo alarm in the bed. The Pod seems to be a very useful equipment in healthcare space and is surely there to stay in times to come, providing ease of sleeping to disturbed sleepers.

Source: www.5thvoice.news

Also Read: Innovative Therapeutic Treatment for Tinnitus Patients

7. Air Pressure and Artificial Intelligence Used to Move Fingers on the Robotic Hands

Festo, German Electrical Automation firm has developed a soft and flexible robotic hand that manipulates fingers by using air pressure and artificial intelligence. The fingers have tactile sensors with a flexible circuit board and is made up of 3-dimensional knitted fabric using elastic and high strength fibres. The bellows inside the fingers move the joints as they fill and empty with air. At the base of the thumb and index fingers,pneumatic swivels allow the movement of the fingers from side to side and nearly two dozen proportional peizo valves in the hand that makes the wrist work as a part of the total hand movement. There is freedom of 12 degrees that allows the hand to manipulate objects with dexterity.The hand uses self-learning technology powered by artificial intelligence to learn to move its fingers and has successfully learnt to roll a dice without dropping it. Once the engineers give the robot an objective, 3D cameras and depth sensors create a virtual copy of an object. The Bionic soft hand’s AI then runs myriad simulations to help it figure out what action needs to be taken. Thus,the fingers of the robotic hand are manipulated by air pressure wherein AI is only a part of the project which fastens the learning ability of the hand. The Bionic soft hand can easily interact with humans due to its soft texture, but it will take time to make its commercial presence in the market as it still needs refinement and broaden its functional capabilities.

Source: www.engadget.com

Also Read: IoT can truly Transform Rural Healthcare in India

8. Kerala Students Have Finger-Sized Water Purifiers to Their Credit

Lamaara Technologies Private Limited, are cent start-up registered in the name of two engineering students from Kerala, Anto Biju and Thomas Cyriac, has made its name due to its innovation of organic purifier that filters dirty water.The unique features of the filter – it is finger-sized,low cost, uses activated carbon cartridge which costs INR 60, needs replacement only every five years. The purifier eliminates foul smell, harmful metals and color from the water and requires no electricity.These purifiers have been approved by the Bureau of Indian Standards and had recently raised INR 4.5 crores. The two young innovators had also made a pen that could detect the elements present in water to list out its impurities. Thus, it was only an identifying instrument and not a solution to impure, dirty water. In order to improve upon their efforts, the duo later made this purifier which proves to be problem solver in a country like India where clean drinking water is still a far-fetched dream in most remote areas. Its USP is the organic make, unlike other purifies made from synthetic fibers. These small purifiers were put to testing during the Kerala floods of 2018 where around 200 purifiers were donated to relief camps in the flood affected areas. This innovation is surely here to stay and save millions of lives by providing the basic amenity of clean drinking water to all.

Also Read: Indian Healthcare Roadmap

9. IKEA Becomes Innovative for Differently Able

Swedish furniture maker IKEA has an Israel arm which has collaborated with non-profit organizations, Milbat and Access Israel to make a series of 3D printed furniture items that make it easier-to-use for the differently-able. The furniture line known as “THISABLES” is a line of 3D printed add-ons for IKEA furniture and it includes 13 items like easier to grab door handles and bumpers to protect cabinets. The available 13 designs slip over IKEA’s existing furniture and accessories to overcome hiccups like turning small button into a giant one or lift a couch couple of inches from the ground to aid in getting up.The items or the 3D printing files can be downloaded for free from the project’s website and can be 3D printed anywhere globally. For assembling the furniture item,detailed instructions are available on the website. Installation methods for 3D modifications are available and demonstrated on IKEA Israel’s YouTube page. The web page also has a column for welcoming suggestions to add more products to these 13 items.

Source: www.theverge.com

Also Read: Effects of Mobile Phones on Children’s Health

Also Read: Top 8 healthcare innovations for the month of October to Decemer 2019

Ransomware epidemic is spreading in healthcare like wildfire due to its increasing digitalization which is and will attract more attention of hackers.

The healthcare industry has been a victim of various cyber attacks in the last few years. According to recent studies, healthcare has outnumbered financial services and become the most cyber attacked industry. The latest in cyber-attack is ransomware wherein the hacker encrypts the data and threatens to publish it until the ransom is paid in form of bitcoins. In US alone, healthcare industry was the victim of 88 per cent of all ransomware attacks across industries last year.

The recent case of WannaCry ransomware crippled the IT systems of NHS, UK. And after hitting NHS, it spread globally targeting more than 99 nations. The hackers demanded payment of £300 – £600 to unlock systems and have earned about £55,000 in ransom.

Ransomware has indeed become a lucrative revenue source for hackers due to which the number of attacks is predicted to quadruple by 2020. Medical records have 10-20 times more value than the credit card data in the internet black market. Ransomware epidemic is spreading in healthcare like wildfire due to its increasing digitalization which is and will attract more attention of hackers. Also, the vulnerability of the health data tends the organizations to pay the ransom to get the data back to maintain privacy and confidentiality of patient data.

Even after so many cases of cyber attacks compromising millions of electronic health records each year, the healthcare industry is inadequately prepared to prevent and resolve these attacks. Whether it is India or US, cyber security is always discussed in forums and budget is allocated for the same but is not put to proper use. Cyber attacks happen due to outdated security infrastructure or employee negligence.

Hospitals and insurance companies have been the main targets of hackers. But, a new vulnerability is catching everyone’s attention i.e. medical devices. The next nightmare in ransomware attacks could be hacking of medical devices such as insulin pumps, pacemakers, defibrillators, implants etc.

Disfunctioning of medical devices can be catastrophic. Just imagine, hackers take control of one’s pacemaker and ask for ransom or else they would manipulate the device which could be fatal. This kind of attack has been showcased in the very famous TV show Homeland wherein the Vice President dies due to hackers remotely disable his pacemaker.

Just like the serial, the former US Vice President Dick Cheney’s doctors disabled his pacemaker’s wireless functionality due to fear of possible assassination attempts as revealed by him during an interview in 2013. This clearly showcases that medical devices can be the next target for hackers.

Regulators such as FDA are increasingly getting concerned about medical device security and have issued warning. In 2015, for the first time FDA issued safety notice to hospitals which strongly discouraged hospitals to use an infusion pump which was found to be vulnerable to cyber attacks. But it has been observed that FDA did not force the company to fix the devices being used in the hospitals and didn’t investigate other insulin pump models. This shows that FDA needs to be more stringent towards medical device security. The vulnerability of infusion pump was pointed out by a white hat hacker Billy Rios during his hospital stay.

Few of the medical device companies/providers have been proactive in strengthening their device security such as Johnson & Johnson in Oct 2016 warned 114,000 diabetic patients about a security lax that a hacker could exploit in one of its insulin pumps (J&J Animas OneTouch Ping). The hackers can disable or alter the dosage which could be fatal. J&J suggested ways to the patients for mitigating risk.

There have been no documented cases of medical device hacking till date but demonstrations have been conducted in research environment. One such example is of Barnaby Jack who succeeded in hacking an insulin pump and demonstrated giving off lethal dose of insulin without the pump alerting the user. Another example is that of St Jude Medical’s implantable devices such as pacemakers, defibrillators, and resynchronization devices. The radio frequency (RF) enabled St. Jude medical implantable cardiac device and corresponding Merlin@home Transmitter enables transmitting and receiving patient data stored on the device to the physician to monitor his health. But FDA reviewed the device and confirmed about cybersecurity vulnerabilities, if exploited, could be fatal.

Also, researchers at TrapX Security analysed three hospitals for medical device hacking. The deception technology was installed which utilized emulated medical devices in the hospitals. These emulated devices attract and trap hackers so that TrapX could trace the hackers activity. These fake medical devices such as Radiation Oncology system, LINAC , Fluoroscopy, PACS and Xray system appeared real to the hackers and TrapX could monitor hacker’s activity.

According to TrapX, these hospitals utilized older version of Windows that made it vulnerable and most medical devices did not have additional endpoint security software which made the attack undetectable. It was also noticed that the main goal of hackers was to steal medical records not to manipulate the device.

Another research at University of South Alabama showcased how they hacked pacemaker and killed a medical simulator called iStan. The $100,000 medical dummy comes equipped with robotics that mimic the human cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurological systems. The researchers could speed the heart rate up or could slow it down. Not only pacemaker, researchers could manipulate an insulin pump or a number of things that would cause life-threatening injuries or death. This clearly illustrates why medical device security is important.

With the advent of IoT, where devices are connected via internet should focus on cyber security. Industrial experts are realizing that cyber security is prime priority for all the devices connected to the internet.

Devices such as wearables, smart bed, smart emergency system, etc. are all lagging behind in cyber security. Apart from medical devices, surgical robots are not being scrutinized for cyber security. Just imagine, surgical robots been hacked which could lead to life threatening situation of the patient. One such demonstration has been showcased by researchers at University of Washington in 2015. They hacked a tele-operated surgical robot, Raven II. The experiment demonstrated three types of attacks that made telesurgery vulnerable with this robot. The researchers demonstrated how they took complete control over the robot and disrupted the operation.

All of this sounds scary but it can be prevented if we are well prepared. It is important to understand that not only regulators like FDA need not address the challenge of cyber security but also the medical device vendors and providers should take shared responsibility. It has been observed that providers point the device manufacturers to be accountable for cyber security for responding to vulnerabilities and providing fixes for the same.

On the other hand, the device vendors hold providers responsible for their negligence and having outdated network  protection. To be safe from such attacks, organisations should review their cyber defence strategies and budget. Also, employee training and awareness needs to be tackled to avoid falling for opening phishing mails and change passwords regularly.

It has also been observed that providers such as middle scale hospitals, clinics or laboratories have often overlooked cyber security as priority as they believe not much data is present with them and only the big organisations are in trouble. Which is not true, as hackers are aware of the precious financial and patient data these clinics hold and are aiming at clinics or small hospitals also to get the data. So, they should also focus on medical device security.

The next big thing in helping fight against cybersecurity is artificial intelligence (AI). According to some analysts, the advantage of using AI is it can help predict cyber attack before it happens with the use of behaviour analysis. It alerts security team on any behaviour deviation or authentication failures while accessing records. AI not only helps in detecting threats quickly but it is also cost efficient compared to the money paid by companies in ransom. It does not replace security tools but acts as an additional layer of security. AI can also help in analysing employee behaviour for avoiding any internal security breach. AI can help in bridging the shortage of skilled cyber security professionals also. According to Centre for Cyber Safety and Education, there is a shortfall of 1.8 million cyber security professionals by 2022 worldwide. Companies such as IBM are already investing in AI system Watson for cyber security.

Also start-ups such as Cognetyx are providing cognitive cyber surveillance solution to healthcare organizations. Use of AI for cyber security in other areas has been showcased, for example, the Las Vegas city officials and UK government to monitor their Public Services Network and protect their records from security threats. Whereas, the successful implementation of AI in healthcare cyber security is yet to happen.

The next wave of medical device cyber attacks can be prevented by collaborative approach and commitment from all the stakeholders. Not only the healthcare organizations should make sure their security practices and strategies are updated but the government should also help in skill development of cyber security professionals and encourage more research on medical device security by providing medical device at low cost. Since medical devices are expensive and require license, it makes it difficult for researchers to explore this area. At the end, we should not forget that we have to stay a step ahead of hackers to be a hard target for them.

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Read all the issues of InnoHEALTH magazine:
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 1 (July to September 2016) – https://goo.gl/iWAwN2 
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InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 1 (January to March 2017) – https://goo.gl/DEyKnw 
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InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 3 (July to September 2017) – https://goo.gl/MCVjd6

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