Understand Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load: 5 Key Principles for Better Blood Sugar Control

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Managing blood sugar levels is crucial for overall health, especially for those with diabetes or prediabetes. Two important concepts to understand to manage health and wellbeing when making food choices especially if you want to manage diabetes are the Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL). Here are five principles to help you make better food choices based on these concepts: 1. Prioritize Low Glycemic Index Foods The Glycemic Index (GI) measures how quickly a food raises blood sugar levels. Foods with a low GI cause a slower, more gradual rise in blood sugar, which is beneficial for maintaining stable energy levels and avoiding spikes. Examples of low GI foods include non-starchy vegetables, beans, and certain fruits like apples, pears, pomegranate and berries. 2. Consider Glycemic Load for a Comprehensive View Glycemic Load (GL) takes into account both the quality (GI) and quantity of carbohydrates in a food. This provides a more comprehensive understanding of a food’s impact on...

An IoT based novel approach for biomedical waste management

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ABSTRACT

The need for proper biomedical waste disposal is critical to prevent spread of infectious diseases and also hospital acquired infections (HAI). There is the need to automate the biomedical waste management process since the new waste management rules are declared in year 2016 and also when devices can gather data on their own, it removes the limitations that human error can cause. Automation reduces the risk of error, and fewer errors can mean increased efficiency, lower costs, and improvements in quality. The following proposal is aimed at using IoT and technology to address the issues related to biomedical waste management in a sustainable way in compliance with biomedical waste manage rules that help hospitals towards NABH accreditation.

INTRODUCTION

The quantum of waste generated in India is estimated to be 1-2 kg per bed per day in a hospital and 600 gm per day per bed in a clinic. 85% of the hospital waste is nonhazardous, 15% is infectious/hazardous. Mixing of hazardous with nonhazardous waste results in to contamination and makes the entire waste hazardous. Hence there is necessity to segregate properly and treat to minimise the risk for hospital acquired infection.
Improper disposal increases risk of infection; encourages recycling of prohibited disposables and disposed drugs; and develops resistant microorganisms.


RELATED WORK

The blood sample are being tracked using RFID in large hospitals while on other hand small scale hospital does it manually, On the similar note, the IoT technology is emerging in medical sector that is laying emphasis on connected devices to minimise the sources of error.

There are are some rules and standards for proper collection and disposal of biomedical waste in hospital and some new rules are added to it in 2016. Amidst of all these changes, Some new R&D have started in field of waste management for smart cities as stated below:

  • Smart Waste Collection System Based on Location Intelligence, Jose M. Gutierrez, Michael Jensen, Morten Henius, Tahir Riaz, ScienceDirect, Nov, 2015.

 

  • Some companies are providing waste management solution and sensors for smart cities development, such as Ecube Labs, WAVIoT Waste Monitoring Sensors etc.

 

  • Our solution is addressing the use of these technologies to address the problem of biomedical waste management and comply to biomedical waste management rules and to minimise the anomalies due to human errors and mishandling.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Need for technology for tracking the biomedical waste, from collection till its disposal, which raises alert when waste is not segregated properly, or on completion of deadline for disposal or on any other mishandling etc.
Need system to visualize the status of all the waste bins in the hospital and get notification when it is full and needs to be treated or disposed.
Operator of a common bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facility to ensure the timely collection of bio-medical waste from the HCFs and assist the HCFs in conduct of training.
Need to monitor Pre-treatment of the laboratory waste, microbiological waste, blood samples and blood bags through disinfection or sterilisation on-site in the manner as prescribed by WHO or NACO.
Need Biomedical waste Management to be done in compliance with the new rules proposed by government in 2016 and help hospitals towards NABH compliance.

 

SOLUTION PROPOSED

The solution consists of an IoT-based prototype with sensors measuring the waste volume in waste bins with the capability of transmitting information to the Internet via a wireless link, The bins also consist of Rfid sensor for storing essential data for tracking waste disposal cycle.

After being filled the smart waste bins are ready for their disposal cycle.

The data in Smart bins are updated with information related to waste type, pre treatment data, information for disposing off, timeline for disposal, or any other necessary information. Etc.

This data is used to optimise the management and strategies of waste collection logistics, tracking waste bins till they get treated and any anomaly in between the path could be detected and alerted for appropriate action using smart app.

The bins gets updated their data at every stage, such as pre-treatment, sterilization, landfill, incineration, transport, waiting etc The biomedical collection department would be alerted in case of any anomaly.

In a nutshell, data gathered by sensors can be sent to remote servers where it is stored, processed and used for tracking, monitoring and ultimately making intelligent decisions for infrastructure or service management.

The hospital staff would be provided with smart card, The app would educate and notify the staff on the waste they are operating and gives an notification to them to wash hands or any other precaution they need to take depending on the waste they are operating.

The proposed solution is aimed to be sustainable, scalable, efficient and in compliance with new rules as per ministry of environment, forest and climate change, government of India declared on 28th march. 2016 and would help hospitals towards NABH accreditation.

TECHNOLOGY USE:
a). Front End: Android / iOS / web app;
b). Hardware: Rfid sensor in form sticker tag for waste tracking including associated metadata, IR/Ultrasonic sensor for detecting filled status of waste bins, Microcontroller such as arduino uno, Rfid reader and writer at various stages of waste management.
c). BACK END: Cloud based architecture backed by scalable infrastructure based on RoR or Java with real time database management.

ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM

  1. Easy to merge with existing system:  All the colour codes of various bins remains the same, The sensors would be installed into the bins for tracking.
  2. No more waste overflowing, No spread of disease: IoT-based garbage monitoring system, The biomedical collection department would be notified when it needs to be treated.
  3. Track waste, endure proper disposal: IoT-based garbage monitoring system, helps update the sensor data at every stage, such as pre-treatment, sterilisation, landfill, incineration, transport, waiting etc The biomedical collection department would be alerted in case of any anomaly.
  4. Train and track hospital staff using smart app: The hospital staff would be provided with smart card, The app would educate and notify the staff on the waste they are operating and gives an notification to them to wash their hands or any other precaution the need to take depending on the waste they are operating.

VALIDATION OF THE SYSTEM

We can incorporate the proposed system into existing waste management routes on a hospital and provide the readers and writers at various stages of waste management to track and monitor the waste disposal and collect the data for utility, alert notification, accuracy and precision of data to validate and data for improvements and changes.

References:

  1. New Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules will Change The way Country Used to Manage Waste Earlier; Make a Big Difference to Clean India Mission’: Javadekar, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=138353
  2. http://www.mppcb.nic.in/Bio_Categories.htm
  3. http://www.dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/DST_WMT_Call_for_Proposals_Dec2016.pdf
  4. Smart Waste Collection System Based on Location Intelligence, Jose M. Gutierrez, Michael Jensen, Morten Henius, Tahir Riaz, ScienceDirect, Nov, 2015.