POC4TRIAGE – Point-of-Care Devices for Urgent Care Triage

Brief information

Cardiorespiratory diseases and stroke are among the top four leading causes of death in the EU in prehospital settings. Urgent care services are in huge need of novel Point of care (POC) computing technologies that can specifically detect patient condition and enable Hospital information system (HIS) with real-time data for triaging patients for right care. Our goal in POC4TRIAGE is to develop robust and accurate POC technologies, from POC testing (devices) to POC systems (platform) that is capable of fast diagnosis and efficient transfer of data to HIS. We will develop and clinically validate four rapid (<10 min) easy-to-use, compact, cost- and energy-efficient POC devices with Edge AI computing models, to be used in ambulance & emergency room settings. POC4TRIAGE devices include a multimodal patch for real-time monitoring of cardiorespiratory data, novel sub-hairline non-invasive EEG based head caps for rapid stroke diagnosis, including detection of large vessel occlusion stroke,a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device for detection and continuous monitoring of brain stroke, and a handheld, rapid immunodetector to diagnose stroke with clinical utility for various conditions. These devices integrate into a new Device Hospital Connectivity Platform (DHCP) that visualizes data, uses AI from multiple devices to triage and seamlessly integrates with hospital systems and clinical workflows. The POC devices and DHCP will be clinically validated.

POC4TRIAGE brings together some of Europe’s leading POC device developers, medical professionals and clinicians, patient representatives, ethics experts, data scientists, and health economists. POC4TRIAGE will shorten the time to treatment and improve clinical outcome. POC4TRIAGE has potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery, making it more accessible and efficient, traceable, and interpretable for patients and providers alike. As the POC device and computation market is growing fast, the new POC devices, real-time data analysis, and secure computing have potential for major economic impact.

This project is coordinated by the University of Turku with the support of complementarity entities (18 partners).

Duration: 1st July 2024 until 30th June 2028

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor HaDEA can be held responsible for them.