TeleLine: Plug-n-Play Inline Respiratory Remote Data Acquisition System

Project Summary One in five Americans live in a rural community served by rural hospitals yet only 1% of ICU resources are available to these hospitals. When the level of care required by a patient exceeds the capabilities of the admitting hospital, the patient is transferred to a better-equipped tertiary hospital. Approximately 800,000 patients require mechanical ventilation every year in the United States (pre-COVID). Treating mechanically ventilated patients not only requires specialized equipment, but also specialized skills as well which are difficult to find in rural settings. Our group proposes novel research to demonstrate the power of telemedicine in the rural setting by extending the reach of pulmonary critical care specialists. By enabling pulmonary critical care specialists at distant sites, rural hospitals can treat more patients without transferring them. Data suggests patients who are transferred from rural hospitals to tertiary care centers suffer delays in care, adverse events, and higher mortality. Unfortunately, due to high transfer rates, significant amounts of revenue are lost and operating budgets at rural hospitals are generally inadequate to support replacement and integration of cutting-edge ventilators to gain telemedicine capabilities. Our research and development is focused on preparing a solution which can extend the geographic reach and enhanced remote capabilities of pulmonary care specialists who are typically located in urban and suburban settings to those rural institutions while at the same time protecting the hospital’s legacy investment in ventilator equipment. To achieve these goals, we have developed an in-line respiratory circuit sensor (TeleLine) prototype that we will further refine for commercialization and eventual in-field deployment. The TeleLine is a non-invasive sensing suite to any existing ventilators and equipping them with both data logging and remote monitoring capability. The patient’s respiratory response to mechanical ventilation can be captured locally and securely transmitted to a remote site with appropriate expertise in pulmonary critical care. We will further develop the TeleLine in two aims: Aim 1) to refine the existing TeleLine prototype for plug-and-play, vendor-agnostic ventilator interfacing, and ventilator data logging; and Aim 2) to develop and benchmark supporting data collection and machine learning infrastructure for facilitating remote patient care. Successful completion of this project will enable a Phase II program that enhances device manufacturability, clears critical benchmarking for initial device regulatory approval, and further develops machine-learning assistance capabilities of the TeleLine system.