United States High Tender

A team of software engineering students at Carnegie Mellon University has developed a wearable device that could help address the unprecedented rates of overdose deaths caused by opioid addiction.As a capstone project for the Institute for Software Researchs professional masters degree program in embedded software engineering four students worked with their sponsor Pinney Associates to build a prototype wristband that can detect overdose in the wearer.The challenge the client presented to the team was to produce a low-cost wearable device that could accurately detect an opioid overdose and send out an alert helping rescuers respond in time to administer naloxone a life-saving opioid antagonist that can reverse the overdose.The device delighted Pinney Associates a pharmaceutical consulting firm that sponsored the work. And it was also clever enough that the team beat out 97 percent of all submissions to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations Opioid Challenge competition ultimately placing third in the competition finals at the Health 2.0 Conference held in September in Santa Clara California.