BiliCam: using mobile phones to monitor newborn jaundice

Abstract

Health sensing through smartphones has received considerable attention in recent years because of its promise to lower costs and provide more continuous data for tracking medical conditions. In this poster, we focus on using smartphones to sense newborn jaundice, which manifests as a yellow discoloration of the skin. Although jaundice is common in healthy newborns, early detection of extreme jaundice is essential to prevent brain damage or death. Current detection techniques, however, require clinical tests with blood samples or other specialized equipment. Consequently, newborns often depend on visual assessments of their skin color at home, which is known to be unreliable. We present BiliCam, a low-cost system that uses smartphone cameras to assess newborn jaundice.