Non-contact automatic vital signs monitoring of neonates in NICU using video camera imaging

ABSTRACT

Non-contact vital signs monitoring is desirable in both clinical and non-clinical sectors. However, there are limited camera-based studies to monitor the vital signs of neonatal infants in a clinical setting. In this study, a digital camera was used to remotely monitor the heart rate (HR) and respiratory rate (RR) of seven infants at Flinders Medical Centre Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The region-of-interest (ROI) was automatically selected based on a skin detection method using skin hue. The experimental results have been validated with the reference data obtained from an ECG monitor, and they showed a strong correlation using the Pearson correlation coefficient, (PCC) .9836 and .9426 for HR and RR, respectively, and a lower error rate with RMSE 2.66 beats/min and 2.93 breaths/min between measured data and reference data. A Bland Altman analysis of the data also presented a close correlation between measured data and reference data for both HR and RR with a mean bias .69 beats/min and .28 breaths/min, and the lower and upper limit of agreement −4.4 to +5.8 beats/min and −5.5 to +6.1 breaths/min, respectively. Therefore, video camera imaging may replace conventional monitoring in NICU and has potential applications in other contexts such as home health monitoring.

KEYWORDS:

• Heart rate
• respiratory rate
• neonates
• NICU
• digital camera
• skin detection

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Government of South Australia and staff of the Flinders Medical Centre Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for providing administrative support and access.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by Research Training Program domestic (RTPd) scholarship provided by the University of South Australia on behalf of the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education and Training.