H.18 Volume-sensing urine bottle for continuous and remote monitoring of urine output

Patients with heart failure, liver failure or kidney failure can suffer from volume overload, where fluid shifts from the vessel to tissues in the body, leading to edema. Volume overload is usually treated with diuretics, a type of medication that induces urination to get rid of all the extra fluid. Monitoring urine output is one the most important clinical ways to determine volume status and response to therapy. In the inpatient setting, urine output is mostly monitored by asking the patient to collect urine in a urinal, and the medical staff would input the numbers seen on the urinal to the electronical health records. In the outpatient setting, measuring urine output becomes more challenging and clinicians rely more on weight changes, which are less accurate for evaluation of response to therapy. However, this method for urine output measurement is human dependant, does not provide frequent urine output values (just once or twice during 24h) and is not available in the outpatient setting.

The goal of my project would be to develop a volume sensing urinal that can detect the volume of urine going in and out of the urinal at frequent timepoints and automatically transfer values into an EHR system that would make these values available remotely and frequently. This method can 1) facilitate remote monitoring of urine output in patients in need 2) provide frequent measurements that can allow us to better understand the treatment effect of a therapy given at a specific time during the day 3) decrease human errors/miscalculations.