Vitex-Medical Pandemic Assistance Tool.

A mobile device that sterilizes wards by using cutting edge far UVC  that is safe and spots latest in Artificial Intelligence to improve patient care and practitioner assistance.

Medical Assistance Tool (Vitex), is an integration of a device, hospital-management software and a mobile application intended to function independently but collaboratively to achieve the goal of improving access, safety and the efficiency of  healthcare services. The device sterilizes wards of 100 square feet by using cutting edge far UVC engine of wave length 222nm that is safe to use in occupied rooms and hand sanitation.[1] The patient management-hospital software monitors patients in facilities, dichotomizes patient needing Intensive treatment and optimizes hospital resources like labour and medical supplies to best work on patients including mothers, neonates, and children in critical condition. Vitex facilitates cutting edge technology that uses a brain-computer Interface and this is especially vital for monitoring mothers, neonates and the dumb. Expectant mothers are extremely weak  with very high lethargic levels, the system extracts information  by using a peripheral  brainwave unit to continuously harness, construct emergency conversations and monitoring data from the mother’s scalp to practitioner’s device. This is very important where first-hand information is required from babies and extremely weak patients as they can’t easily speak.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...                  

Uganda continues to grapple with health disparities, high morbidity and mortality rates in neonates and maternal health contributed to by high rate of nosocomial infections, iatrogenic ailments, and antimicrobial resistance.

Nosocomial pneumonia is especially high in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) particularly in infants with mechanically assisted ventilation. The mainstream use of chemicals in disinfection is not effective at disinfecting the air, ventilator masks, tubing and nasal cannulas, it also leaves scents and droplets that may be toxic to intubated mothers and neonates. In a study, out of 160 babies admitted in NICU, 133 (83.1%) were put on mechanical ventilation and nosocomial pneumonia was found in 65 (40.6%) babies. This amounted to 88.3 cases per 1,000 ventilator-days.[1] Additionally, Health workers may not always tell when a patient’s condition is about to worsen. This leads to longer hospital stays and poorer outcomes. Patients could have avoided the ICU altogether had their condition been recognized early.[2] The COVID-19 pandemic has further imposed a significant level of challenge to health care access, especially in low middle-income countries.

[1] Petdachai W. Nosocomial pneumonia in a newborn intensive care unit. J Med Assoc Thai. 2000 Apr;83(4):392-7. PMID: 10808699.                 

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Our beneficiaries will include hospitals, hospices and other long-term care facilities in low-to-middle income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has a poverty (below $2 per day) rate of about 41%, and accounts for 27 of the 28 poorest countries in the world[1].  Our system includes a device with the ability to safely disinfect wards, hands in areas with no water ,Medical equipment and transfer supplies to patients , thus reducing the health personnel cost and improving service efficiency in the hospitals.      

Our device is expected to provide at least 80% reduction in the rate of nosocomial infections in hospitals. The percentage of time to distribute supplies to patients should improve by 40% over the manual processes thereby enabling nurses to concentrate on other critical issues.

Vitex will lead to; Reduction in spending on protective personal gear due to reduced contact, reduced practitioner infections, reduced mortality due to infections and antimicrobial resistant strains,  Improved patient records and most importantly reduced costs for recurrent disinfection and hand sanitizers.

Our anticipated community impact is a reduction of the morbidity and mortality rates especially in maternal and neonates to better healthcare services and antimicrobial resistance mitigation. These resultantly can increase  lifespan and survival.

[1] Brooklings (2018): Africa in Focus - Figure of the Week: Understanding Poverty in Africa., Available online at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2018/11/21/figure-of-the-week-understanding-poverty-in-africa/

[2] World Health Organization (n.d); Global Health Observatory (GHO) data: Life Expectancy. Accessed on 15-05- 2020 from https://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situation_trends_text/en/

The initial Vitex device  was tested in 4 hospitals in Uganda and received positive reviews and feedback this was later published in the Future Technologies Conference in Canada. It was further developed into an advanced medical assistant, a modern, sleek 3D printed design that is made out of 80% waste plastic.

We entered into a consortium style collaboration with an engineering firm, a marketing firm and a medical device production and facilitation organization called the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) for device development.

Our first prototype was tested in four major hospitals in Uganda and the outcome published at the Future Technologies Conference (Vancouver). The feedback from the usability evaluation and the conference presentation (during the covid19 pandemic) gave rise to the development of a medical assistant with full automation, patient monitoring and with safe far Ultraviolet (UV) disinfecting ability.

We have  developed and tested Vitex  that doubles as a disinfecting equipment and a communication tool between the patient and doctor.  Our design started as a crude pill dispenser, which was later refined in terms of size, components, and capability. The Minimum Viable Product was further tested in the same four hospitals in Uganda ie; Mulogo referral hospital,mengo hospital,Kibuli hospital and Naguru hospital Feedback from the practitioners were considered in further refining the system prior to conducting a user acceptance testing.

Vitex is eco-friendly and utilizes antimicrobial materials; these nano copper 3D materials continuously eliminate pathogens up to 99.9% on the device surface. Additionally, affordable 3D materials made from 80% waste plastics are used making Vitex eco-friendly.

Vitex sterilizes wards up to 99.9%  by employing  far UVC engine that can be used in occupied rooms, far UVC light of 222nm kills pathogens efficiently but without a risk of cancer and cataracts. Additionally, it is developed with a national medical account  repository software that enables access to accurate and timely medical information.  

Vitex  facilitates  cutting age technology that uses a Brain-Computer Interface for patient monitoring this is vital  especially for patients who are extremely weak with very high lethargic levels ,the power of the mind will be harnessed to construct emergency conversations and monitoring data from the patient’s scalp to  practitioners device by using an advanced non intrusive electroencephalogram to intercept and translate brain signals into meaningful texts and voice .This is very important where first hand  information is required from babies as they can’t speak, the blind ,dumb and extremely weak.

The device spots a Powerful Artificial Intelligence package that incorporates Intel Real Sense, auto-follow, video capture, touch & voice control, playful expressions, and personality to keep patients in a cheerful mood. In fact, Vitex includes over-the-air updates making it viable for endless integration, including providing seamless data access for important time-sensitive decision-making through elaborate integrations

We expect to serve over 18,250 people in the course of one year.

Approximately service provision per device - 50 patients and sanitise 10 rooms per day (18,250 patients and 3,650 rooms per annum). 

Our anticipated community impact is a reduction of  morbidity and mortality rates especially in maternal and neonates and antimicrobial resistance mitigation. These resultantly will increase  lifespan and survival.

Vitex will enable saving of staff wages; the average monthly salary in Uganda ranges between $122 to $1,972 per medic.

Reduction in cost of sanitisation and associated equipment damage due to detergents, steam and alcohol based sanitizers. 

We expect rolling out the product to more rural and urban health facilities with poor sanitation protocols and low per-capital health care expenditures. We will use both gross (i.e., price of the product × number of units sold) and net (i.e., gross revenue - commissions - discounts – returns) revenue to summarize the financial health of our innovation. We intend country wide scaling by partnering with ministry of health, national associations of medical practitioners; private and public hospitals.  The system will be evaluated by 1000 patient users and 60 medical practitioners and scaling up effected in rural health Centres III, IV &V (1000). Registration of individual citizens will be at birth, registration hot spots and on hospital admissions. The users’ adoption of our system will be assessed using the medical application evaluation framework (Wright & Sittig, 2008; New Zealand 2017) with a focus on architectural, usability, functionality, effectiveness and efficiency features. In the long run, we will additionally rate the overall project success in terms of number of  medical facilities that adopted the system, number of individual users. 

We shall conduct evaluation using formative and summative phases. The formative phase will be periodically to assess adherence of the implementation process to the project’s objectives.

Periodic assessment of actual number of infection cases and collecting Secondary data from health authorities regarding hospital infections prior to project implementation to form the baseline for trend analysis of hospital infections; measuring the interest of the local authorities to support and adopt the intervention program in health centers.

 Performance indicators (KPIs) for tracking device performance include:

• Device’s disinfectantion coverage - the total square meter of space disinfected per duration. Our device is expected to provide at least 80% reduction in the rate of nosocomial infections in hospitals.
• Device usage coverage- the percentage of time to distribute supplies to patients should improve by 40% over the manual processes thereby enabling nurses concentrate on other critical issues. That is, the percentage of nurses needed to administer supplies should reduce by at least 40%.
• Device Heat map: A daily and weekly report will present a visual representation of the route covered by the device and identify areas the device could not get to probably due to obstacles.

The KPIs will be measured as follows : Measure of the device’s disinfectant coverage area per duration to be done with the support of trained volunteers ; focused group interviews with patients, medical personnels, administrators and train volunteers to assess usage effectiveness of the intervention.

As with any innovation scale-up, we anticipate some challenges, most of which would relate to anticipation of partnership involvement and funding. It is our expectation that ministry of health, government hospitals and private healthcare companies such as pharmaceuticals and private hospitals, will partner with us, providing about 10% of the financial support, plus the legal framework for system implementation. There is a possibility that we might encounter regulatory challenges. To mitigate the risk, we will enter into prior discussions with the health authorities and obtain all implementation approvals.  We intend to strike collaborations with innovators, researchers and health professionals in Uganda, as a strategy for navigating the contextual peculiarities.

Our team is composed of Student innovators with skills in programming, and Computer Aided Designs providing a rich resource to scale this project. The team has transformed our crude first prototype into a sleek modern design. 

Mugisha Gift, A student system Developer working on the Computer Aided Designs vitex project and leads the team.

Arnold Kiirya, A student system Developer working on coding, and integration of the project.

Ainembabazi Samantha ,She is a medical student, she will lead medical  research activities.

Our innovation is in partnership with Mount Royal University and Makerere University (MUK), MUK is a center of excellence in research and innovation in Uganda. MUK has a number of innovations aimed at addressing societal challenges. Notable to mention is the  COVID-19 Rapid Antibody Test Kits (2021), Mount Royal University (MRU), Canada has extensive experience in conducting research and managing large funds from the Government of Canada & other external agencies.

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Our team is composed of ambitious and resilient student innovators with skills in programming, and Computer Aided Designs providing a rich resource to scale this project. The team has transformed our crude first prototype into a sleek modern design.

Mugisha Gift Arnold is the co-founder of Vitex Scientific limited, a startup that is projected to manufacture hospital disinfecting systems, automated medical assistants. The team is uniquely qualified for this award because the Co-founder has skills that have transformed Vitex into a modern sleek design.

He has skills in programming, project management and Computer Aided Designs.

His achievements include;

• Youth representative in district administration sessions 2009
• Most innovative student in Mbarara district SESMAT Competitions
• Most innovative student in the archdiocese  by the arch bishop, 2015
• SESEMAT 2014, National Winner
• Fifth International Conference on Advances in Bio-Informatics, Bio-Technology and Environmental Engineering -ABBE 2017 Author
• IST AFRICA 2017, Winner paper
• 2017 IRED PAPER, Author
• Principal investigator Future Technologies Conference, Usability of the smart dispenser and medical assistant in hospitals in Uganda. Published in Canada.
• Winner student innovation award of the year 2020,Uganda
• Lead of eMPAT project that won $15,000 from Research Innovations Fund,Makerere.
• Panelist FAMSA international conferences
• Co-investigator Future Technologies Conference, Development of an e-Health System for Improving Health-care Access in Developing Countries,2021 
• Lead of the e-Health for medical access in low middle-income countries that won $14,000.

Arnold Kiirya, A student system Developer working on coding, and integration of the project.

Ainembabazi Samantha ,She is a medical student, she will lead medical  research activities.

We will use the prize  to; Personnel: Salary – to pay trainers, data collectors, data analysts and programmers, people in charge of  3D printing, Electronic Engineers and application testers: This will cost $30,890.

Subcontract: for programming/coding, renders and computer aided design, Vitex device development, simulation, repair and maintenance. This activity will cost $39,970.

Capital assets and equipment: Procurement  of 3D printers, laser cutters and 3D filament maker:$50,790

Travel – to enable travel by some team members for meetings and Conferences, testing and training .It will cater for return air tickets, visa fees, transit fees, COVID-19 tests, per diem and inland transport: This will cost  $25,210.

Supplies: Procurement of supplies, payment of subscriptions for research reference materials, purchase of stationery, payment of Zoom license to enable online meetings by team members. This activity will cost $34,000.

Other : Auditing, utilities, sanitation: This will cost $8,997.

Indirect costs: collection of data and requirements, analysis and modelling of the data. The activity will cost $3,350.

Total:  $ 193,207.