IO, Surabaya – The contribution of students from the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS), Surabaya, in the realm of COVID-19 has again marked achievements. Thanks to the idea entitled “Design to Build an Integrated Smart and Sustainable Container Hospital” as a COVID-19 patient quarantine facility, the ITS student team, named “Tiksna Falcata” brought home a Gold Medal in the Physics and Engineering category at the 2020 Young National Scientist Fair (YNSF).
The team from the 2017 Physics Engineering Department consists of Robert Ciputra Hermantara, Handy Suryowicaksono, Syaharussajali, Akbar Anugrah Putra, Aulia Rayimas Tinkar, and Bagas Hani Pradipta. An increasing number of people who contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus has resulted in hospitals and health facilities to suffer from insufficient capacity. If a hospital lacks capacity, the impact will be patients re not being handled properly, and a swelling rate of virus transmission.
“Therefore, our idea is to use a container, taking advantage of its portable nature so that it is easy to move and can be equipped with smart system features,” said Robert, as team leader, in a release received by the Independent Observer, Friday (8/21/2020).
There are several features for an isolation ward, as well as physical restrictions that have been adjusted to the health standards and protocols of the Indonesian Ministry of Health and WHO; it is thus deemed safe to use as a quarantine facility. “Hopefully this smart container hospital can be a solution to existing problems,” he said.
The container hospital design, which also received an MIICA Special Award Road in IIIC 2020, has a hospital design with a capacity of 25 containers, each of which consists of two patient rooms along with one toilet, and one control room for medical personnel to monitor the patient’s condition and the container unit.
The Human Machine Interface (HMI) in the control room allows medical personnel or related operators to be able to control and monitor the condition of the container unit in terms of temperature, humidity, lighting, energy use, and also to monitor the patient’s condition. “Apart from the control room, the main hospital can monitor the condition of the container unit and check on patient information through an application connected directly to the related device,” said the student, also a member of the ITS Barunastra Team.
The advantages of container hospitals are that this design is more concerned with physical restrictions by using isolation boxes with inpatient rooms and smart system technology that relies on installed sensors and medical devices for patients. “So it is quite easy to supervise and treat patients through the control room and applications on the device,” he said.
However, there were several obstacles when designing this container hospital. One of them was that the team found it difficult to communicate, and only relied on video conferencing applications due to the current pandemic conditions. Fortunately, several members happened to be in Surabaya and were able to coordinate directly. “Most often as a whole we still use the online system for discussions.”
To overcome limitations, the team implemented a working system that was scheduled and also evaluated every week, so it is a kind of logbook that all team members understand and can check on duties to be done that week. “We hold 2-3 weekly meetings for progress evaluation,” he said.
In this event, apart from collecting papers and presentations before the jury, the Tiksna Falcata team sent two representatives, namely, Handy and Syaharussajali, to be registered. However, the total work from start to finish is carried out by all team members, with their respective assignments.
Robert again revealed that even though the competitors came from other great public universities, his team was still confident and optimistic. “With that, we finally managed to get a Special Award, which will enable us to continue competing in Malaysia.”
The hope is that the Tiksna Falcata Team can refine their work, and add features that make the work of medical personnel easier and safer, while increasing the safety of COVID-19 patients. “It is also possible that the government can take our idea as a reference and solution in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully, our fellow students can also work and continue to innovate in any condition, even if only from home,” he said. (est)