CIMIT showcases four novel technologies at US Army’s Advanced Medical Technology Exposition

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CIMIT showcases four novel technologies at US Army’s Advanced Medical Technology Exposition.

(Ft. Detrick Maryland) Four CIMIT-supported clinical/engineering collaborations will be demonstrating medical device innovations at the annual Advanced Medical Technology Exposition on June 17-18. 2009. All technologies will benefit patient care for both soldiers and civilians.

Each year the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) and Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) sponsor a technology exposition featuring a variety of technologies to aid soldiers on the battlefield, in restoration and rehabilitation care or at home. The 2009 TATRC exhibit will include devices in the areas of simulation, robotics, informatics, medical logistics, deployable telemedicine and technologies for combat support hospitals.

This purpose of the exposition is to increase awareness and facilitate collaborations that promote tri-service healthcare excellence and provide opportunities for networking among investigators sponsored through the Department of Defense, USAMRMC and TATRC.

The four CIMIT exhibiting teams are:

Hand Hygiene Reminder and Monitoring System
Ronald Newbower, PhD; Michael Dempsey
Massachusetts General Hospital, (MGH)

Hospital-acquired infections (HAI's) cause at least 88,000 deaths annually at a cost of $4.5B representing a major health issue for DoD, VA and civilians. Expensive education and surveillance programs produce transient improvement. Proper hand cleansing is the most critical element to decrease HAI’s, but poor compliance for hand hygiene is well documented. CIMIT's solution to this problem is to generate a 'zone of protection' for the patient through a reminder system that emits a quiet signal to care providers in the event they have not washed their hands prior to engagement with a patient. The device also captures hand hygiene statistics for use by hospital administration. This solution has the potential to significantly increase patient safety and dramatically reduce costs.

SmartPad: A Wireless, Adhesive-Electrode-Free, Autonomous ECG Acquisition System
Fred Chen, Henry Wu, Pei-Lan Hsu, Brad Stronger, Hongshen Ma
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robert Sheridan, MD
Shriner’s Hospital-Children and MGH

For trauma patients time is critical, but so is continuous monitoring (ECG, respiration, blood oxygenation and temperature). Making sure diagnostic equipment is properly attached and functioning, however, takes time. Pads loosen, cables tangle and the web of wires for diagnostics can get in the way. CIMIT's solution is to eliminate the sticky pads and cables and create a silastic sensor placed on a stretcher using off-the-shelf materials. It uses electrode arrays as embedded sensors to monitor ECG and automatically scans to find the optimal signal. The system is able to acquire ECG signals for different body orientations and battery powered wireless results in lower noise in ECG signal. This results in continuous cardiac monitoring solution for trauma (in hospital or in disaster settings) and provides a wireless link to a laptop. The SmartPad may enable and ease monitoring of trauma casualties during medical evacuation. Additionally, utilization of this technology holds promise in austere settings where using more cumbersome ECG machines may not be practical (e.g. Forward Surgical Teams, Combat Support Hospitals).

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) to Evaluate Pain and Consciousness
Lino Becerra, PhD; Edward George, MD, PhD; Gary Brenner, MD, PhD; Dennis Burke MD, David Boas, PhD, David Borsook, MD, PhD
MGH

Patient awareness and pain during anesthesia or sedation carry significant consequences including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and currently has no objective measure. CIMIT's solution detects brain cortical activity associated with pain and consciousness by using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS). This non-invasive, real-time evaluation of pain and consciousness poses great utility in potentially mitigating the incidence of surgical-related PTSD, as well as monitoring pain of our wounded warriors, in particular of those who can not communicate.

Medical Device Plug-and-Play Interoperability
Julian Goldman, MD
MGH

Patient-Controlled Analgesia (PCA) Safety Interlock for Patient Safety: Medical device interoperability can be used to integrate infusion pumps and monitors to reduce the risk of respiratory complications. A medical device network manager tracks the presence, absence, and status of devices used, and warns if the network is unable to accommodate a new device. A flight-data-recorder-type data logger captures device data, network traffic, and user interactions for analysis of quality metrics or of adverse events and near misses. The exhibit shows that the use of more than one type of monitor to assess respiratory function may increase the reliability of problem detection while reducing false alarms. The PCA example shown is only one of many clinical scenarios that could benefit from standards-based integrated medical device systems to support innovation in patient safety.

More Information:

CIMIT
A clinically based consortium of Boston-area hospitals and engineering schools, CIMIT supports translational research by multidisciplinary teams for medical device and clinical technology system applications. Physicians from Harvard teaching hospitals collaborate with scientists and engineers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, and physicians, scientists, and engineers from Boston University with the goal of solving medical problems through innovative technology. CIMIT attracts world-class clinicians, scientists and engineers working together with industry and government to accelerate the clinical impact of innovative technologies. Research teams draw on the expertise of a professional staff skilled in all phases of the research process—from innovation, through demonstration, into commercialization and into patient application.

United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC)
The U.S. Army Medical Research & Materiel Command is the Army’s medical materiel developer, with lead agency responsibility for medical research, development and acquisition, medical logistics management, medical information management/information technology and medical health facility planning. http://mrmc.amedd.army.mil.

Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC)
The Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center’s mission is to execute a congressional special interest program of medical science and engineering technology research that maximizes benefits to military medicine. http://www.tatrc.org/

We welcome inquiries from journalists. Please contact Elaine Richardson with any questions or to reach our researchers:

Elaine Richardson
Director, Strategic Communications & Marketing
617-643-3847
emrichardson@partners.org