New life is fragile. While every newborn is at risk for a life-threatening bacterial infection (sepsis), some carry particular risk. Currently, these newborns require careful monitoring using cabled devices attached to the skin and/or repetitive medical examinations, which interfere with normal parent-child bonding after birth. This project explores the feasibility, usability, and acceptability of using an innovative non-invasive wireless device (Bambi-Belt) to monitor vital signs without medicalizing or disturbing family life, while ensuring appropriate treatment and protection from sepsis.

This project is exploratory in nature, aiming to quickly identify the opportunities, pitfalls, facilitators, and barriers for this solution. To expedite the process, no patients will be involved in this phase. We will undertake the following activities:

1. Validity: Analyze available and preliminary data regarding the use of the Bambi-Belt in (near-)term newborns, sourced from published studies and provided by Bambi Medical.
2. Feasibility: Evaluate the current commercially available, CE-marked, and tested version of the Bambi-Belt with nursery personnel and parents. Explore their thoughts on barriers and facilitators, and identify necessary changes for our use case.
3. Usability: Originally developed for more fragile newborns in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) setting, the Bambi-Belt will be adapted for use in a nursery. We aim to design a basic monitoring and alarm system that is user- and patient-friendly while maintaining adequate interpretation of vital sign information.
4. Acceptability: Conduct stakeholder focus groups and parental interviews to determine the acceptability of the product and systems designed. Use this feedback to redesign the product and system where necessary.

In collaboration with TU Delft, Erasmus MC, Erasmus University, Bambi Medical, and Care4neo, the project will produce the following outputs:

1. 1. A visualization of the service design needed for the Bambi-Belt to be implemented for remote monitoring of term newborns with an indication for observation for potential sepsis.
   2. A roadmap outlining facilitators and barriers to guide the transition from the current technological and medical system to the future design. These will be essential inputs for formulating the next steps towards an implementation project.

Results and follow-up

With the help of Industrial Design Graduation student Karlijn Sanders from TU Delft, 17 interviews and co-creation sessions were held with nurses. Based on their input, she delivered a prototype for integrating continuous monitoring using the Bambi-Belt at a maternity ward, considering medical demands, nurses’ needs, and parental preferences. Her end products included a prototype of the ‘care cloud’ and a roadmap toward implementation. The project team is now seeking additional funding to further develop the Bambi-Belt for this new use case.