I-Corps: SmartSpiro

肺活量测定，即呼吸的测量，是诊断肺部和呼吸系统疾病的常用测试之一。如今，患者只能在诊所或医院的肺功能测试实验室进行肺活量测试。由于准确的肺活量测定需要专家技术人员的指导，所有诊断的肺活量测定只能在这些位置进行。因此，肺活量测量的等待时间通常很长，例如在休斯顿等待3个月，即使在印度的大城镇也几乎不可能。该研究团队将开发首款临床级便携式肺活量计SmartSpiro，将肺活量测量带给大众。SmartSpiro的创新之处在于，它扮演着训练有素的技术员的角色，使用信号处理和机器学习的组合，通过算法找到肺活量测量中的错误。目前的原型已经可以检测出所有主要的肺活量误差，准确率为94%，随着算法的进一步完善，它还将得到改进。除了纠错，为了提高非专业用户使用SmartSpiro的易用性，该团队还将增加本地语言定制和口语反馈功能。他们还将在肺活量计硬件上设计可定制的激励驱动显示，以支持更好的患者依从性。SmartSpiro的目标是将一种适合服务不足的患者群体和肺部疾病的设备商业化，例如印度的发展中国家或休斯顿等发达国家的农村地区。此外，SmartSpiro的自动化测试能力将允许在测试实验室之外使用肺活量测定，并支持使用目前的肺活量测定技术进行目前无法进行的护理点肺部测试(例如在患者S床边)。

Spirometry, the measurement of breath, is one of the commonly used tests in the diagnosis of pulmonary and respiratory illnesses. Today, patients can only have spirometry tests conducted at a clinic or a hospital's Pulmonary Function Test Lab. Since accurate spirometry requires an expert technician's guidance, all diagnostic spirometries can only be conducted at these locations. As a result, the wait times for spirometries are often long, e.g. 3 months in Houston and nearly impossible even in large towns in India. This research team will develop SmartSpiro, the first clinical grade portable spirometer that brings spirometry to the masses. The innovation in SmartSpiro is that it performs a role of a trained technician by algorithmically finding errors in spirometry, using a combination of signal processing and machine learning. Current prototype can already detect all the major spirometry errors with 94% accuracy and it will be improved as algorithms are further refined. In addition to error correction, to improve ease of use SmartSpiro for non-expert users, the team will be adding local language customization and spoken word feedback capabilities. They will also be designing customizable incentive-driven displays on the spirometer hardware to support better patient compliance. SmartSpiro aims to commercialize a device which caters to under-served patient segments and pulmonary conditions, e.g. developing countries in India, or rural areas in the developed countries like Houston. In addition, SmartSpiro's automated test capability will allow for use of spirometry outside of testing labs, and empower point-of-care pulmonary testing (e.g. at the patient?s bedside) which is currently infeasible using current spirometry technology.