MamaOpe Smart Auscultation Device

Pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children under five in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diagnosis often relies on a health worker listening to chest sounds and counting breaths, skills that vary with training and workload.

Where specialist support and diagnostic equipment are scarce, respiratory assessment is hard to do consistently.

The device is MamaOpe's hardware product, separate from but complementary to HealthNavi. The product-level description below comes from the Royal Academy of Engineering; it is not a claim that I designed every component.

Publicly documented characteristics: four microphones that capture lung sounds simultaneously from the base and apex of each lung; suction-cup attachments; adjustable probes for different body sizes; LED status indicators; a mechanical power switch; and Wi-Fi transfer of recordings to a phone or tablet app.

Structured, simultaneous acquisition of chest sounds from multiple positions, transmitted to an Android app that estimates respiratory rate and flags abnormal sound patterns, with recordings stored in a screening history.

Physical products force end-to-end thinking: sensors, firmware, connectivity, software and the person holding the device are one system.