Fujitsu, Fujitsu Laboratories, and Nagoya University Team Up for Research on Collecting and Visualizing Health Data

Nagoya, Kawasaki, and Tokyo, Japan, June 22, 2012

Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu Laboratories Limited, and Nagoya University today announced that the three organizations have begun joint research on collecting and visualizing health information. The research uses a wristwatch-style health-monitoring device and system developed by Fujitsu Laboratories to collect, analyze and display data.

This research takes the nocturnal enuresis (known as bedwetting) as a case study. The patients with nocturnal enuresis and their families are asked to record their daily activities and bedwetting incidences in the form of daily diaries, while a wristwatch-style device worn by the patients automatically collects minute-by-minute health-related data including activities, body moisture and environmental data. The information collected will be stored in and be viewable from the cloud, by which the research aims to make it easier to understand a patient's daily activities and status, and to facilitate the information sharing between patients and their doctors.

By creating technologies for collecting and visualizing the health information of individual patients, Fujitsu is striving to improve health management and to assist the prevention of illnesses in the future.

About PME Innovative Research Center for Preventive Medical Engineering

In April 2010, PME Innovative Research Center for Preventive Medical Engineering (Director: Prof. Seiich Matsuo, MD/PhD , who is also the Vice President of Nagoya University and Chief of Headquarters for Promotion of Industry-Government-Academia Cooperation of Nagoya University, and the Director of Nagoya University Hospital) was founded at Nagoya University as a research center promoting integrative research projects, such as collaborations between government, academia and industry, and projects integrating medicine and engineering. Based on the concept of "putting the hospital in the palm of your hand," the Center aims to focus on an individual's medical data and health data and use it to achieve a level of preventive medicine and early treatment never before possible. This is done by building a seamless care system covering health maintenance to treatment that quickly reveals even minor changes in health status based on cumulative individual health/medical information, enabling early treatment and preventive medicine that is optimized for the individual.

Joint Research Project Overview

Fujitsu, Fujitsu Laboratories, and Nagoya University are collaborating on the project described below. Its objective is to facilitate doctor/patient sharing of activity and environment data gathered by sensors worn by patients, as well as diaries recorded by patients and their families.

1. "Ohisama calendar" patient diary, where patients record activities and incidents

This is a system in which study participants and their family members enter information related to nocturnal enuresis such as mealtimes, water intake, times and frequency of toilet use, and bed-wetting incidents. Collecting information through self-reporting is expected to help patients notice changes in their activities and status.

2. Collect and visualize health data via a wristwatch-style device

To augment the daily diary, the system automatically collects and displays health data from a wristwatch-style device that is worn by study participants. This device captures health-related data, such as bed-wetting incidents using a moisture sensor, environmental changes using a temperature sensor, and activities using an acceleration sensor.

3. Instant notification of changes in status, and analysis / display of activity and environment data

The sensor data and manually reported data collected by the system are merged, analyzed and displayed, providing instant notifications of bed-wetting incidents detected by the moisture sensor. It aims to improve quality of life by enabling the family to respond promptly. The extraction of relationships between bed-wetting incidents and other collected data will also be attempted.

Study objective 1: comment from PME Innovative Research Center for Preventative Medical Engineering

This study makes it possible for participants with nocturnal enuresis to maintain an accurate log of their activities and to analyze them in the context of related data. Therefore, it is our hope that we can come to better understanding of the pathology of bed-wetting, and ultimately predict it.

Study objective 2: comment from Fujitsu and Fujitsu Laboratories

As part of Fujitsu's goal of building a Human Centric Intelligent Society, we plan to pursue R&D that will accelerate systems for collecting and displaying health data in a variety of areas.