Multiplexed wireless battery-free sensors for pediatric intensive care units (PICU).

Project Summary In the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) monitoring of hemodynamics and oxygen transport provide critical information needed by care providers for decision making. Patients end up with so many wires, tubes and umbilicals that access to the patient and movement become limited. Furthermore, many of these monitoring techniques are invasive, and for the frailest patients in the PICU, often result in suffering or even morbidity. There is an urgent need for reducing invasive monitoring and the number of wires that get attached to PICU patients, while still providing the critical physiological data that care providers rely on. Wearifi, Inc. is working to develop a platform for wireless battery-free patient monitoring. In this proposal the platform will be applied to the PICU setting to reduce the number of wires that are attached to patients and to investigate if the system can provide a surrogate or indicator for parameters that are traditionally only available from invasive monitoring techniques. The specific aims of this work include 1) hardening of the platform for clinical use and compatibility with standard patient monitors, 2) validation pilot study in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (PCICU), and 3) an attempt to correlate data from the wireless sensor platform to additional markers of interest such as systematic vascular resistance (SVR). This project fits the mission of the NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In particular it is well aligned with the objectives of the RFA-HD-19-001 Safe and Effective Devices for Use In Neonatal, Perinatal and Pediatric Care Settings. We have assembled a highly qualified and competent team form the small business Wearifi, Inc. and clinical experts from Northwestern University’s Ann andamp; Robert H Lurie Hospital and Feinberg School of Medicine to develop and test innovative patient monitoring devices for use in the pediatric intensive care unit.PROJECT NARRATIVE Physiological monitoring in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) provides information that is critical decision making. However, for the frailest patients traditional invasive arterial and central venous lines can cause tremendous suffering and even morbidity. The work in this proposal is focused on developing a wireless battery-free physiological monitoring system for the PICU that will reduce the number of wires that are needed for physiological monitoring and may lead to advances that will reduce the need for invasive monitoring techniques.