The “SMART” bandage system stands for “Sensing, Monitoring, And Release of Therapeutics”. This new technology monitors wounds in real-time as it helps them heal, and is in the development phase by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at University of Texas at Arlington led by Weidong Zhou, professor of electrical engineering.
The SMART bandage is a flexible and portable tool that doctors can place over a patient’s wound. The non-invasive device will give medicine to the patient in real-time and will eliminate use of bulky devices. The goal is a bandage that eases the patients’ pain and helps with the healing process. Liping Tang, a bioengineering professor with expertise in biomaterials, tissue engineering and generation, and biodegradable polymer scaffolding, will be responsible for vivo testing. He believes that doctors will get hard data with regards to the wound from SMART Bandage and will be able to make more informed decisions about patient care and therapy. Others involved in this development come from many related fields and the primary goal of this development team to develop and bring to market a device that is cost-effective and affordable.
Developments such as this will definitely help introduce wearable health monitoring devices that are cost effective and are also more accurate in health management than the existing or current systems.
