PISANO SPS: Perioperative Innovations, Sleep Apnea and Newborn Opportunities

pDemographic changes induce an ever-higher burden on the healthcare system. Early detection of complications and diseases and the determination of effective personalized treatments are essential to lower this burden, to prevent comorbidities, and to lower healthcare costs while simultaneously improving patient outcome and quality of life. The PISANO project proposed here seeks to leverage technological advances in pathophysiological modeling, unobtrusive sensing, monitoring and artificial intelligence (AI) towards this end. A major thrust is on radical innovations towards widespread use of ultrasound (US) technology. Wearable US cuffs will enable continuous peri-operative monitoring to detect hemodynamic instabilities; AI algorithms will be developed to improve image quality and ease-of-use of US; and the effectiveness of IntraVascular US will be enhanced through AI algorithms trained on synthetic data from a physically accurate image simulator. For Obstructive Sleep Apnea patients, we will measure sleep parameters to enhance the effectiveness, personalization and adherence of positive airway pressure treatment, which currently suffers from low adherence. To improve the monitoring and risk management of pregnancies, novel wearable fetal monitoring technologies will be developed, capable e.g. of keeping track of fetal movements. The general approach in PISANO is to co-develop novel technological solutions in a controlled clinical environment, and to subsequently refine and validate them in extramural and at-home settings, immediately followed by deployment in the healthcare system with the aim to increase effectiveness at lower costs in combination with lower patient burden and higher patient quality of life./p