A Low Cost Device for Monitoring the Urine Output of Critical Care Patients

Sensors

Abraham Otero¹  Francisco Palacios²  Teodor Akinfiev³ 

[1] Department of Information and Communications Systems Engineering, University San Pablo CEU, Boadilla del Monte 28668 Madrid, Spain;Critical Care Unit, University Hospital of Getafe, Getafe, Carretera Toledo KM 12.500, 28901 Madrid, Spain; E-Mail:;Center of Automation and Robotics, Technical University of Madrid, Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CAR UPM-CSIC), La Poveda, Arganda del Rey, 28500 Madrid, Spain; E-Mails:

关键词: biosensors;    urine output;    critical care;    intelligent alarms;    patient monitoring;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s101210714

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

In critical care units most of the patients’ physiological parameters are sensed by commercial monitoring devices. These devices can also supervise whether the values of the parameters lie within a pre-established range set by the clinician. The automation of the sensing and supervision tasks has discharged the healthcare staff of a considerable workload and avoids human errors, which are common in repetitive and monotonous tasks. Urine output is very likely the most relevant physiological parameter that has yet to be sensed or supervised automatically. This paper presents a low cost patent-pending device capable of sensing and supervising urine output. The device uses reed switches activated by a magnetic float in order to measure the amount of urine collected in two containers which are arranged in cascade. When either of the containers fills, it is emptied automatically using a siphon mechanism and urine begins to collect again. An electronic unit sends the state of the reed switches via Bluetooth to a PC that calculates the urine output from this information and supervises the achievement of therapeutic goals.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2010 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.