A team of students from Carle Illinois College of Medicine has created a new smartphone app to help anesthesiologists manage the complex devices that sustain patients’ lives during surgery.
The machine learning app, called Halo, uses artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and image recognition to supply anesthesiologists with just-in-time information on anesthesia machines, infusion pumps, and monitors that track the patient’s condition during surgery. Anesthesiologists are tasked with managing this wide range of life-sustaining devices before and during surgery. Keeping up with all the equipment parameters can be difficult, especially when the need is urgent.
“Our goal was to create a tool that allows clinicians to access specialized anesthesiology device information instantly, without needing specialized software or searching through manuals,” said Anvita Mishra, founder and project lead.
Halo functions through a conversational, chatbot-style interface that allows clinicians to ask questions and troubleshoot devices in real time. Image recognition allows an anesthesiologist to snap a photo of any device and retrieve crucial information, all through any standard smartphone.
“With Halo, clinicians can instantly access instructions which can reduce errors, improve workflow efficiency, and allow anesthesiologists to devote more time to patient care,” team member Gaurang Amonkar said.
The invention recently won first place in the 2026 Society for Technology in Anesthesia (STA) Engineering Challenge, a national competition focused on innovation in technology that supports surgery, planning, and recovery. Mishra presented Halo to an audience of anesthesiologists, engineers, and industry leaders at the STA annual meeting. Mishra invited clinicians to test it by asking questions about devices that they routinely use.
“Halo illustrates how AI can solve real clinical workflow challenges,” Amonkar said. “This project bridges engineering and medicine, showing CI MED students’ ability to translate clinical problems into technological solutions.”
The Halo team exemplifies CI MED’s emphasis on innovation through cross-disciplinary collaboration, drawing on the team members’ experience in engineering, computer science, and medicine. Mishra and Amonkar both have backgrounds in biomedical engineering, Kanch Sridhar is a chemical engineer, and Preethi Prem is trained in computer science.
Editor's note: Team Halo is the third group from CI MED to win the prestigious STA competition. Michael Ma and Maharshi Pandya (both MD Class of 2025) won the competition in 2023 with a machine-learning system designed to improve the assessment of patient recovery following surgery. In 2025, Nathan Nguyen and Sharon Chao devised SuctionSense, a smart pressure transducer system aimed at prolonging the life of costly anesthesiology suctioning equipment.