Unbeknown to him, his father had been transferred into a different ward, so locating his father became a mission not to mention stressful.
"Hospitals are a confusing place with no natural landmarks.
"The corridors all look the same and it can be pretty disorienting.
"Despite hospitals spending millions of dollars on signage, the problem hasn't been solved."
Ben looked at his father's hospital wristband and thought there must be a better way of locating patients.
His research shows there are some big companies using radio frequency tags in hospitals, for tracking equipment, but they hadn't put all the elements together.
"From that I could see we could put that technology in a band and use it to track patients."
He is trying to raise money to develop a full working prototype of Wellbands.
A crowdfunding webpage page has been launched and he needs $12,000 for initial development of things like mouldings, chip development, database and app development. After three days the project had already generated nearly $1000.
"It's getting shared all over the world which is really awesome."
If the crowdfunding is successful, the prototype will be developed by Ben and his team, big investors approached, and a final prototype created.
Ben has also been invited to an accelerator programme from Grow Wellington, from August to November, which could put him in touch with investors.
"The final prototype would then go into production and be launched throughout hospitals."
Ben says "I want to change healthcare forever and I'm going to give it my best shot."
* If people want to help Ben, they can go to his Go Fund Me page at www.gofundme.com/wellbands
