
FreePulse Patient Monitor a low-cost patient monitor for use in developing world - patopop007
http://www.freepulsemed.com/
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adrianN
Does "for use in developing world" mean "isn't compliant with regulations in
developed countries", or why isn't a cheaper monitor also interesting for eg
the US?

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rstevens24
Hey adrianN, creator of the project here. "For use in developing world
environments" means built to perform to hospital specifications but without
the cost markup or over-the-top complexity of a developed world piece of
equipment. I've spent about four months working in hospitals in Rwanda and
Nepal fixing donated "developed world" medical devices, and the fact of the
matter is that 35% break within a year of donation and 95% within 5 years.
This project is built so that it is easily maintainable, easily repairable,
works out-of-the-box, and is at a price point that developing world hospitals
can afford to purchase with their budgets (~200-300 USD, according to my
sources in Rwanda). Also, most developing world hospitals have a very high
nurse turnover rate, making it critical to make the device simple enough to be
used by staff who haven't been trained yet.

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rstevens24
Will be making a blog post at reecestevens.me/blog about this very soon
(within the week), so check back around Friday and I'll be able to give you a
more fleshed-out response (with pictures!)

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you_eeeeeediot
Would love to see more details on this. I've checked the one (and only) blog
entry from the creator... not much there either. Call me a skeptic, but
shouldn't there be more detail when people are being asked to help fund this.

Lovely idea for a product though, and definitely doable with todays off the
shelf tech.

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rstevens24
Hey! Sorry about the lack of material on the blog, I set it up about last week
so I haven't had a chance to post too much yet. The code for the project is
open source, hosted at [https://github.com/ReeceStevens/patient-
monitor](https://github.com/ReeceStevens/patient-monitor). Look for a new blog
post coming up this week with a lot more background about the project. I also
have blogged about my work in developing world hospitals that led up to this
project; that info is at
[http://www.reecestevens.svbtle.com](http://www.reecestevens.svbtle.com).

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wyager
I'm not the author, but I'm friends with the guy who made this. I don't think
the github repo is public yet, but he said he's planning on making it public
soon after a bit of cleanup. And yes, this is real hardware that works. Reece
has been working on this for a long time, and I'm glad to see it on HN!

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rstevens24
A blog post with more background for the project can be found at
[http://reecestevens.me/blog](http://reecestevens.me/blog) !

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jrnichols
"with probes built to measure ECG, SpO2, NIBP, and more"

automated nibp? 3 or 4 lead ECG? or 12 lead?

I'm more curious about the hardware than anything at this point.

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rstevens24
Hey jrnichols! The device measures 3-lead ECG and has semi-automatic NIBP; the
user pumps the cuff up to max pressure with a hand pump, but the pressure is
measured and released automatically by the device.

