Design, Development, and Fabrication of an Intravenous Infusion Monitoring Device

For the gravity-driven intravenous infusion, the nurse normally observes and counts the drips in the drip chamber and determines the drop factor on the IV administration set to the drops per minute for an infusion by gravity. This method is quite complicated and may not be accurate. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to design, develop, and fabricate the infusion monitoring device using wireless data transmission. The developed system uses an infrared sensor to detect IV fluid droplets. The microcontroller ESP32 was used for processing data before displaying it on the TFT screen and sending wireless data with the wireless transmission on a wifi network to display on the internet browser at the nurse station in order to monitor the information from a distance and to reduce the continuous on-site monitoring. Our developed system was tested to verify the measuring flow rate and delivered volume in comparison with the infusion device analyzer in the range of flow rate between 20 and 200 milliliters per hour with different lighting conditions. The results indicate that the device can real-time monitor the infusion process and present accurate infusion information. In addition, the alarm signal will be activated when the infusion stops, rate too fast, and complete. This developed system can provide advantages in many aspects such as convenient deployment, flexible use, and reliability.