This project is an initiative of the Department of Surgery in Maasstad Ziekenhuis. In the department, two types of patients undergo abdominal surgery: 1) mobile obese patients and, 2) patients with cancer. These types of patients need personal contact and guidance, especially patients with cancer. However, nurses are overwhelmed with work and utilize a great amount of their time to manually measure the vital signs of patients three times a day. These vital signs are heart rate, blood oxygen level, respiration rate, tympanic temperature, and blood pressure. The current method of measuring vital signs is highly inefficient and prone to error. Additionally, there is also a lack of an alarming system that can notify nurses when patients’ health condition deteriorates. Due to this, patient deterioration cannot be detected in time and complications cannot be avoided. When manual measurement of vital signs is digitalized, patients can be continuously monitored. Due to this, small changes in the patient’s health condition can
be detected and nurses can intervene immediately. Current wearable devices in the market do not meet the needs and wishes of the user group. Therefore, the initial goal was to design a wearable device that is able to continuously and noninvasively measure vital signs of patients, taking into account the level of comfort for patients and level of user-friendliness for nurses. After extensive research, conceptualization, and testing, one final proposal is presented: Omnivisi Earable, a compact and lightweight wearable device that can measure all aforementioned vital signs in a continuous and non-invasive way. Due to its small form, it does not limit patients from performing their daily activities. It is also user-friendly for nurses due to the lack of wires and extra modules. This makes it easy for nurses to attach the product on the patient's body.