An Autonomous IoT-Based Contact Tracing Platform in a COVID-19 Patient Ward

Since 2020, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a substantial impact on all community sectors worldwide, particularly the healthcare sector. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at risk of COVID-19 infection due to occupational exposure to infectious patients, visitors, and staff. Contact tracing of close physical interaction is an essential control measure, especially in hospitals, to prevent onward transmission during an outbreak event. In this article, we propose an Internet of Thing-based contact tracing system for subject identification, interaction tracking, and data transmission in hospital wards. The system, based on Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) devices, tracks the duration of interactions between different HCWs, and the time each HCW spends within the patient rooms using additional information from proximity sensors in the hallway or on the door frame of the patient room. The collected data are transferred via long-range (LoRa) wireless technology and further analyzed to inform infection prevention activities. The suggested system's performance is evaluated in a COVID-19 patient ward with both standard and negative pressure isolation rooms, and the current system's capabilities and future research prospects are briefly discussed.