Fabrication and testing of a real-time nicotine detector for digital health management

慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）是加拿大主要慢性疾病中住院的主要原因，每年花费纳税人大约15亿美元。虽然目前还没有治愈慢性阻塞性肺病的方法，但通过早期发现和持续监测对疾病进行有效管理已被证明可以降低成本并改善患者预后。Agartee Technology Inc.是一家加拿大数字医疗初创公司，该公司开发了一种新型健康跟踪平台，使用专有传感器积极监测COPD的关键指标。然后，该平台将这些信息实时传递给医疗保健提供者，从而使他们能够做出明智的决定，以改善患者的生活质量。目前英属哥伦比亚大学和Agartee之间的合作项目旨在扩展该平台的功能，以检测环境空气中的尼古丁。二手烟中的尼古丁会极大地加剧慢性阻塞性肺病，用尼古丁传感器和警报系统增强现有平台可以进一步提高疾病管理的质量。尼古丁传感器和报警系统将使用新颖且坚固且廉价的导电聚合物薄膜和电子元件构建，并将与Agartee目前的平台无缝集成。我们提出的这种低成本和耐用的健康监测系统的建设将被证明是医疗保健系统的游戏规则改变者。

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the leading cause of hospital admissions among major chronic illnesses in Canada and costs taxpayers roughly $1.5 billion each year. Although there are no cures for COPD, effective management of the disease through early detection and continuous monitoring has been shown to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes. Agartee Technology Inc. is a Canadian digital healthcare start-up that has developed a novel health tracking platform to actively monitor key indicators of COPD using proprietary sensors. The platform then relays this information to healthcare providers in real-time, thereby allowing them to make informed decisions to improve the patient's quality of life. The current collaborative project between the University of British Columbia and Agartee aims to extend the capabilities of the platform to also detecting nicotine in the ambient air. Nicotine in second-hand smoke can greatly exacerbate COPD and augmenting the current platform with a nicotine sensor and alerting system could further improve the quality of management of the disease. The nicotine sensor and alerting system would be constructed using novel and robust yet cheap conducting polymer films and electronic components and will seamlessly integrate with Agartee's current platform. The construction of low-cost and durable health monitoring systems of the type that we are proposing will prove to be game-changers for the healthcare system.