MONITORING & METERING FEATURE Ben Crundwell, electronics engineer at Cambridge Design Partnership,
looks into the development of the First Response Monitor, a wearable biometric device designed to monitor the vital signs of trauma patients, helping medics save lives in disaster and battlefield situations
A LIFE SAVING SOLUTION W
hile we may be familiar with the rise of fitness or wellness wearables
for consumers, the same technology hasn’t yet been widely adopted in the healthcare arena. However, the opportunity is huge, with the global wearable medical devices market estimated at $3.3 billion in 2015 and projected to reach $7.8 billion by 2020. A key benefit of well-designed wearable
medical devices should be that their small size allows them to meet needs currently unfulfilled by existing healthcare equipment, which tends to be large, cumbersome or overly complicated. One such device is the First Response Monitor, the first wearable device designed to monitor the vital signs of multiple trauma patients for emergency response in disasters and battlefield situations. Measuring vital signs of trauma patients
at the point of injury improves the chances of patient survival – yet it remains a time-consuming and manual process for most first response medics. Respiratory rate is often neglected by automated monitoring systems and has been described as the ‘forgotten bio-sign’. Many existing monitors focus on heart rate alone and those that do measure respiratory rate have low accuracy or are difficult to use in an emergency situation. However, the benefits of accurately monitoring respiratory rate are clear, and when combined with other parameters – such as heart rate and body temperature – can indicate life- threatening conditions such as sepsis.
DATA COLLECTION The First Response Monitor is a lightweight, robust and low-cost wearable biometric device that not only monitors patients but collects and transmits data in real-time, enabling the medic to care for a greater number of casualties. The small device simply clips onto a
patient’s nose and provides ‘at-a-glance’ displays of both heart rate and respiratory rate. Data can be collected from multiple monitors and added to a trends graph showing how these measurements have changed over time. The information can then be transmitted using Bluetooth low energy to a smartphone app or tablet. Not only does this enable the medic to
focus their efforts on providing care rather than taking measurements, but it also enables the care giver to understand how the patient’s condition has changed over time as well as supporting multiple patient triage or situational awareness across the group.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT During the design process, Cambridge Design Partnership interviewed army medics about their requirements and the challenges in multiple casualty emergency situations. It was identified that a low-cost device was needed to bridge the gap between manual methods of vital signs measurement – which can be laborious and challenging amidst the noise and stress of a disaster or on the front line – and more expensive patient monitoring systems. During the research, it was discovered that while elements such as blood pressure might be useful for a longer term diagnosis or treatment, to rapidly assess the condition of an emergency casualty the critical measurements are breathing and heart rate. By reducing the scope of the device, its size could be significantly impacted, enabling the design of a much smaller monitor – one that could become a wearable device. This also allowed the unit cost to drop, by refining its range of functionality. The lower cost means that it can remain with the patient as the medic doesn’t need to retain or reuse it, and this allows the patient to be continuously monitored, enabling trends data to be collected about their condition over a period of time. In order to keep the unit size down,
the battery had to be small which would limit the time it would stay active. So research was carried out into exactly how long such a device would need to remain working to monitor casualties while waiting for, and during transportation to, a hospital. Similarly, anything carried by soldiers has to be robust and hard-wearing, so appropriate materials had to be considered. In addition to this, a military medic’s primary role is as a soldier, and secondly
as a first responder. Whilst they have a good understanding of first aid, any device should be self-explanatory to switch on and intuitive to set up and use. As single use design had already been considered, specialist sealed packaging was incorporated to automatically activate the monitor when opened, reducing steps to operate the device, simplifying the process further and saving crucial response time. While the battlefield triage market is still the lead opportunity, the device has the potential as a disruptive force in several other markets, including opportunities in consumer, civilian medicine, elite sports sectors and low-cost basic medical monitoring for rural clinics in low resource settings.
Cambridge Design Partnership
www.cambridge-design.co.uk
The First Response Monitor has recently won two Red Dot awards:
www.med-techinnovation.com/News/home/news/1389/Two+Red+Dot+awards+for+UK+med-tech+innovation
INSTRUMENTATION | JULY/AUGUST 2016 13
The small device simply clips onto a patient’s nose and provides ‘at-a-glance’ displays of both heart rate and respiratory rate. Data can be collected from multiple monitors and added to a trends graph
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