Sreehita Hajeebu, Moorestown Friends School (MFS) alumna, and her colleagues have developed an app that is now in the prototype phase. It uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality to help assess wounds.
“Healthcare has always been a passion of mine,” Hajeebu said. “Since I was little, I’ve always wanted to be in the field of medicine.”
According to MFS’ website, the MFS capstone program is designed to challenge and inspire students who wish to pursue advanced study in a particular field. Beginning in the spring semester of junior year and running through the middle of senior year, the program asks participants to produce scholarly work by engaging in independent research and/or creative development under the guidance of a MFS faculty member. All projects culminate in a public demonstration, which may take the form of an academic presentation/defense or a creative performance.
When Hajeebu proposed her capstone project during her junior year (the idea to develop the app originally started two years ago), faculty quickly realized that the scale and timeline of the project far exceeded a typical MFS capstone project.
“I used to do a lot of community service in India in my grandparent’s village and I would notice that a lot of (people) would have these wounds, and they wouldn’t have proper access to healthcare and there wouldn’t be any doctors within a five-mile radius,” she said. “That’s just not okay, and that’s how I started developing this passion to create some kind of technology that would enable that proper care for those who are not able to reach that care physically.”
Hajeebu had been reading about and watching videos of doctors speaking about disparities in wound care and felt that it was an area where she could conduct research and make a difference. It became her goal to create a mechanism for people to assess wounds using technology, specifically the cameras on their smartphones and tablets. Within weeks she was working independently to study how the use of technology and artificial intelligence could help address disparities with wound care treatment.
“Technology has become even more prevalent in connecting us all together, and that’s especially how we can connect doctors, physicians, nurses and patients,” Hajeebu said. “I started delving into the world of telehealth and seeing how we could use the new up-and-coming artificial intelligence and augmented reality in order to be able to solve that issue and connect the gap between these doctors, physicians and patients who are unable to get that care … It’s much better than looking at, let’s say, a picture … It provides a much more accurate model which allows for a more accurate diagnosis.”
Hajeebu worked with her father – who is an information technology professional – to assemble a team of professionals that include doctors, technology experts and healthcare business professionals. The team has met frequently for more than a year as they’ve developed the app and a business plan. They currently are in an intense data-gathering phase, seeking out data from podiatrists and other physicians who deal with wound care frequently. Hajeebu and her colleagues recently unveiled the app at the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care in Annapolis, Md., and will soon file for a provisional patent.
“Because artificial intelligence is so up-and-coming and everyone is interested in it these days, it really helped us gain a lot of attention from the people who attended the conference,” Hajeebu said. “It was definitely a huge success, and the public was really interested in it, which is really good because we know that we have a big audience out there.”
Hajeebu is excited to see the app become a game changer for people and looks forward to seeing how it will affect many lives.
“I went to the symposium, and we were able to touch so many hearts of doctors and (healthcare) providers and just seeing that response … We were able to connect to such a wide audience, and being able to reach out to so many people just with our words and with the capabilities of our app was just incredible.”
