VIMONET Background

This project tagged VIMONET was developed by the team of researchers at the Federal University of Technology Minna at the onset of the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in 2019.

The COVID-19 was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global pandemic in March 2020.

The outbreak did present unprecedented challenges, which exposed the feebleness and inadequacies of many national health care delivery systems. In particular, the pandemic did put the Nigerian health care system under immense pressure ranging from capacity stretch to inadequate protection for health care workers.

Consequently, responding to this public health emergency and successfully minimizing its impact required that every resource and available technology be leveraged. Thus, the need to evolve the Nigerian health care system towards addressing the pandemic and beyond served to motivate the development of a vital sign monitoring system integrated with a real-time e-clinic management platform termed VIMONET (VItal sign MOnitoring NETwork).

VIMONET refers to a vital sign monitoring network system being developed by the team of researchers to be deployed for providing enhanced healthcare delivery services during the present COVID-19 era and beyond, when completed.

VIMONET will enhance remote health care services and management in addition to building a database for public health experts. It will comprise a well-structured, real-time online e-clinic with provision for remote consultation and interaction between patients and doctors. It will integrate wearable sensors for measuring vital signs such as temperature, blood pressure, and pulse rate to be transmitted via a Long Range (LoRa) and GSM communication module to a central facility. These vital signs, along with patients' location and information will be relayed to health experts including medical doctors, public health experts, and clinical psychologists for onward diagnosis.

This project is funded under the 2020 TETFUND National Research Fund (NRF) Intervention. Mental Health Unit.