Wendy Nilsen
$185,037
University of Florida
Florida
Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)
The goal of this project is to develop technology that can improve patient care and increase patient safety during pandemics such as COVID-19 that flood medical facilities. This project will develop an inexpensive, portable, in-circuit respiratory monitoring technology that enables safe and effective care of multiple patients needing ventilation during a crisis when facilities and clinicians are stretched thin. The system can provide remote alarms and monitoring of any ventilated patient -- saving clinical time and precious personal protective equipment (PPE) required to enter a COVID-19 isolation room, as well as dramatically increasing safety when using emergency ventilators. The system will also be designed to provide decision support in a rapidly changing environment and can collect important data for analysis of patient physiology to also improve care. The system also includes the ability to individualize treatment and monitoring to provide safe and effective ventilation of multiple patients on a single ventilator.The planned design is the result of the team's long experience with ventilator and respiratory monitor design and is based on existing medical device software and proven ventilator technology. The system has been designed to use novel algorithms and sensing, while being rapidly manufactured with off-the-shelf components where possible. Other critical components that may be unavailable due to the crush of the pandemic have been designed to be easily 3D printed or injection molded, based on existing, proven designs. The team propose to build a monitoring and control device using an inexpensive tablet as the user interface and a smart sensor using Internet of Things (IOT)-based processor boards to monitor and collect data and provide safety advice to the over-worked clinicians. A safe, easily manufactured, modified pneumatic exhalation valve controlled by the monitoring system with pressure from the airway circuit itself will be added to individualize treatment for patients sharing a ventilator. This project provides the monitoring and control to safely and effectively use existing tools to ventilate patients. Beyond its pandemic uses, next generation versions of the technology can be used in isolation rooms of the future and also in resource-limited areas of the country and the world.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.