EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan State University engineering design team has designed and developed a medical diagnosis device that would allow patients in developing countries like China to be inexpensively screened for a variety of medical problems.  

Faculty facilitator Tongtong Li, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and students Joe Hines, Janelle Shane, Kevin Scheel, Thomas Casey and Kurtis Hessler teamed up with students from China and Italy in the project.  

“The goal of the project was to develop a low-cost, low-maintenance, user-friendly medical device that can perform multiple biomedical measurements for patients in rural areas,” Li said. “The free screening tests can provide immediate medical diagnosis for the patients and help them to determine whether further medical assistance needs to be pursued,” she explained.

Affordable health care in China is an important issue as health care costs are major contributors to poverty. Although China’s health care system is in a state of reform, lack of health insurance, especially in rural areas, prevent many Chinese people from seeking medical care.  

The device performs a number of diagnostic functions, all of which are pressing health care needs in rural China: blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, temperature, glucose level and electrocardiogram. An additional online database system for patient records and a wireless infusion bottle monitoring system will be useful to doctors and other hospital workers, making the device beneficial not just to patients. 

Available for free use in rural hospital lobbies, the device is designed to be simple and safe enough to be operated by trained volunteers or even the patients themselves.  

For its originality and quality of product, the design team has been selected among 30 finalists for the Mondialogo Engineering Award 2007. 

The five-member team was at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim, Germany, this summer and was nominated to proceed to the finals of the worldwide engineering contest by DaimlerChrysler AG and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 

The final competition will take place in December in Mumbai, India, where the best team will be honored with the Engineering Award. 

About 3,200 engineering students from 89 countries participated in this summer’s competition. 

Key factors for the submitted projects to advance to the finals were creativity and quality, feasibility and pursuit of the UN Millennium Development Goals. The intensity of intercultural dialogue and the exchange of knowledge between the trainee engineers also played a crucial role in the assessment.  

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Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.