Intern Project

VitalTag

In the summer of 2024, our interns Eve, Harvey, Jacob and Jade dedicated nine weeks to prototyping solutions to improve equipment tracking in hospitals.

What was the journey to VitalTag?

The challenge given to this year’s interns was to develop a low-tech, low-cost solution to equipment tracking in hospitals. This arose after HDI’s medical anthropologist carried out observations in a hospital and noticed healthcare staff spent a significant amount of time locating equipment.

The interns developed an inexpensive tag that can be attached to medical equipment, emitting a Bluetooth signal. They then created an iOS app that detects nearby tags and displays their location on an indoor map of the hospital, a feature developed by last year’s interns. Lastly, they developed a dashboard for hospitals to manage their equipment.

Through these capabilities, VitalTag aims to allow medical staff to reduce the time spent searching for medical equipment, thereby increasing time spent on patient care.

Hospital equipment tag 

The interns designed a custom-made tag (photographed below) that can be connected to any device with a USB port. In addition to emitting a unique ID via Bluetooth, the tag can send information about whether the device it is connected to is currently in use. The interns were able to minimize the cost, with each tag costing £2 to produce. They also optimized its size, reducing it to the size of a 10p coin. Finally, they made sure the battery life was at least five years to align with the servicing timeline of equipment.

Companion app 

The interns developed an iOS companion app that listens for nearby Bluetooth signals emitted by tags and displays their predicted location on an indoor map. As shown in the first app screenshot below, when a user clicks on a nearby device such as “PCA pump 8”, they can see if it is currently in use. In the second screenshot, the user is reporting that “PCA pump 8” is broken and is providing details about its inaccurate readings.

Hospital equipment management dashboard 

To assist hospitals in managing their equipment, the interns developed a website dashboard, as shown in the screenshot below. There are different search and filtering options to display each tagged piece of equipment and to get information such as when it was last seen (i.e. detected) and if there have been any issues reported.

What’s next for VitalTag?

Our talented interns have prototyped a fantastic low-cost and low-tech product that facilitates hospital equipment management, potentially saving medical staff many wasted hours. The capabilities created with VitalTag, along with those created last year with MobiCare, have HDI eager to develop these products further.