The United States Department of Defense is Developing a Wearable with Real-Time Infection Prediction

U.S. Department of Defense (Image credit- Encyclopedia Britannica)

The Department of Defense in the United States came up with the idea for a wearable device that can detect illnesses in real-time. During the pandemic, the RATE program came up with an idea for a device that could monitor the health of service members and provide early warnings. The Defense Innovation Unit of the United States Department of Defense has worked with a company from the private sector to develop a wearable gadget that can detect diseases in a short amount of time. According to the reports, this endeavor is known as the RATE Program, which stands for the Rapid Assessment of Threat Exposure Project. The new program will make use of an artificial intelligence algorithm that has been taught to utilize hospital-acquired data from cases of different ailments, which will leverage biometric data from commercial-grade wearables. This data was gathered from patients who were treated at the hospital for a variety of conditions. These devices will be able to make a prediction up to six days in advance and offer early detection up to 48 hours before symptoms manifest. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="957"] Image credit- Frontiers[/caption] According to the RATE Program Manager, Jeff Schneider, the department has been intending to invest in preserving the readiness of its employees to carry out missions as important as this one. This endeavor is being made in order to detect infectious diseases in its service members, such as COVID-19, which has been a disease with unpredictable and changeable symptoms. Schneider further mentioned that the algorithm that was utilized for this gadget was included in a publication called Nature's Scientific Reports, which was released in the year 2022. This showed the usefulness of wearables that are powered by algorithms in assisting with military readiness. In order to implement the algorithm throughout the gadget, the department collaborated with Philips, a business that specializes in the development of technology, to create this technology. The privately held company is currently working on commercializing and scaling production of the new wearables in an effort to take its business to the next level. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1499"] Image credit- Nature[/caption]   Because Philips has made their algorithm device agnostic, Head of Philips Integrated Technology Solutions Navin Natoewal stated that the company is able to use biomarker data from any commercial wearables. "After that, we compare those indicators to our clinical data sets that are stored in the cloud in order to provide a RATE well-being score. "The score has been demonstrated to be illustrative of the beginning of infections," he went on to say. Funding for the Devices According to the news release, RATE was one of the first ten pilot initiatives that were carried out by the department as part of the initiative that was formed to Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies. Also read: Google Offers Cash Back for Incorrect Cheapest Flight Predictions In addition to the funds that were allotted for the development of this gadget, the department received additional money of $10 million to enable it to add 4,500 more users of the wearable technology across a variety of government agencies throughout the country. The 360-first sergeants that make up the Air Combat Command will be one of the organizations to benefit from the newly developed technology.