Nico Aci

sana!

Romy Munder, Caroline Bunk, Nico Aci | Semester 2

The sana! application enables long-term measurement of body data. This is done easily and without any puncture using the Sana patch. This avoids snapshots and allows the patient to monitor their body data over an extended period of time.

Sana also saves time for both the doctor and the patient. The patient can share their data during a doctor’s visit, eliminating the waiting time for blood test results and saving the doctor the lab examination. With Sana, the user always has an overview of their health status and can access this information at any time.

In the course Invention Design 1, the task was to engage with future technology and research the latest technological developments on the topic. Based on this research, an experimentally meaningful application/product should be developed.

Each of the team members was interested in medical technologies. Initial topics included digitalization in hospitals, computer-brain interfaces, and digital twins. Several elements from these initial topics were combined, leading to the final topic of real-time body data measurement.

Interviews

To gain a clearer understanding of the topic, several interviews were conducted with experts (general practitioners, medical technical assistants, and nurses). The insights we gained from the interview with a general practitioner were particularly valuable. He provided us with a very good understanding of how a diagnosis is made and which values are read for which diagnoses.

Research

In the research, several sensors and measurement methods for body data were compared. The following sensors and analysis methods were combined for the sana patch:

• Nanocellulose Sensor: This sensor measures without puncture using silver nanowires. The nanocellulose sensor can measure relevant metabolic parameters such as the concentration of calcium, potassium, and nitrogen-containing ammonium ions in sweat, blood, and urine.
• Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis: This method builds an electromagnetic field in the body, which can be used to calculate body composition.
• ECG Chip: This chip measures the heart rhythm, frequency, and pulse of a patient. The ECG chip is implanted under the skin for 3 months to measure the electrocardiogram over the long term.

First Prototype

After the research phase was finished, we started to create the first prototype.

User Test and Redesign

We conducted multiple user tests using the first prototype and gathered a lot of feedback. We attended the course on application design and received valuable information on how to design an app. We decided to completely redesign the Sana app. The redesign made the app more minimalist and consistent. Additionally, features such as a search field and the ability to display more values were added.

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