Phase II Amount
$1,000,000
The problem addressed in the feasibility study done with frontline healthcare workers prior to this Phase II was to determine if the biosignals measured by the OURA ring could detect COVID-19 and other FLI before subjective physical symptoms occurred. Giving advanced warning of potential contagiousness, gives workers the ability to isolate before spreading the illness to co-workers, therefore maintaining effectiveness of the healthcare system. Based on early findings from several research and healthcare institutions including UCSF and WVU it has been shown that the OURA ring biosignals (HR, HRV, Temperature and RR) may indeed provide early signals of illness. The initial study includes 3,500 front-line healthcare workers who are in daily contact with patients who may be afflicted with COVID-19. Additionally, current OURA ring users have been given the opportunity to participate in the study and to date, over 40,000 users have opted to share their OURA data and take a daily subjective survey. The commercial hardware solution has been sold and being used by over 180,000 users. The current primary use is to track sleep and readiness levels of users to improve their performance in either sport or corporate settings. The OURA ring is continuously measuring activity with an accelerometer (50hz) and skin temperature (1 minute intervals) using 3 NTC temperature sensors. The two infrared sensors sample continuously throughout the night at 250hz to detect blood flow in order to measure HR, HRV and RR. The Phase II project will be using the same OURA ring hardware as the commercial solution and will collect data to be used to characterize COVID-19 signals to create an algorithm for early detection of COVID-19 and other FLI. Using 3000 AirForce operators will enable the algorithm to be tuned for that specific demographic and can be incrementally improved over the 24 month period of the Phase II. At the end of the Phase II, this algorithm will be incorporated into the commercial OURA ring product and be used to detect COVID-19 and other FLI. Benefits to the Air Force and the Department of Defense will be to sustain the health and performance of its Airmen through earlier detection of influenza-like symptoms, which could lead to more effective and less invasive strategies (e.g., training modification as opposed to medical treatment) for illness mitigation, recovery and performance maintenance.
