Intelligent NFC potassium measurement strip with hemolysis check in capillary blood

Abstract

© 2018, The Author(s). 130 million people in Western Europe and the USA suffer from chronic cardiac degeneration or kidney insufficiency. The medical treatment requires a routine medical examination accompanied by laboratory blood analyses. This is cost-intensive for the health care system and also time consuming for the patients. This paper presents an economical, wireless sensor node solution in terms of an intelligent near field communication (NFC) potassium measurement strip (NPMS) usable in a home environment. The NPMS comprises two different electrochemical sensors for the acquisition of two parameters in capillary blood and an autonomous sense and identification grain (ASIG) for the electrical analysis, communication, and data transfer. The ASIG is equipped with an integrated amperometric and potentiostatic functionality, radio frequency identification (RFID) interface for high frequency (HF)/NFC, and has been designed using a 130 nm CMOS standard process. It facilitates the implementation of two different measurement techniques, which are necessary for the accurate determination of the potassium concentration in capillary blood, whereby the occurrence of hemolysis can be detected. This NPMS impresses with its large scale integration and is solely powered by the NFC reader device.