N.1 Cleanroom Coverall Aseptic Donning Improvement Problem Description Project Name: Cleanroom Coverall Aseptic Donning Improvement Background/Problem/Need: As a part of our product portfolio, we produce sterile cleanroom products used by workers producing products in controlled environments. Within most sterile cleanroom manufacturing environments, there are many considerations taken by the workers to maintain an aseptic environment and to minimize any risk of contamination. Often, the main...

H.11 Improved Prehospital Blood Warming Problem Description Improved Blood Warming Device The ability to rapidly infuse warm blood products is critical to trauma patients. They need both the rapid administration of blood products and the prevention of hypothermia. Plasma and Red Blood Cells are often frozen or cooled for transport, and even if all blood products are at room temperature (20 – 25 C), this is still significantly below the ideal infusion temperature of 36 C. Current systems allow...

I.2 Scope Cleanliness Device Problem Description Endoscopes and bronchoscopes are the medical devices most frequently associated with outbreaks of nosocomial infections due to difficulty in cleaning and disinfection . A large outbreak of P. aeruginosa infections related to bronchoscopy was apparently caused by a loose biopsy-port cap in the bronchoscopes, thus retaining water residue leading to the growth of this organism.Instrument safety and surveillance methods for bronchoscopy must be...

H.32 Improving Arm Positioning for Conebeam CT Problem Description   Clinical specialty for this project: Interventional Radiology   Project title: Improving Arm Positioning for Cone-Beam CT   Project Statement: Conebeam CT (CBCT) has become a mainstay of advanced imaging in interventional radiology (IR) across the United States and the world. During outpatient minimally invasive image-guided procedures ranging from treatment of cancers in the liver to endovascular treatment of...

H.31 Reducing Risk of Nontarget Embolization and Improving Therapeutic Delivery During Prostate Artery Embolization (PAE) Problem Description Title: Reducing Risk of Nontarget Embolization and Improving Therapeutic Delivery During Prostate Artery Embolization (PAE)   Project Statement:   Prostate artery embolization (PAE) is a procedure increasing exponentially in demand. Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in the setting of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are very common; up to...

H.30 No Sticks in Vein Problem Description Most of us have good and bad experiences with needle blood draws. When it is not the pain from the actual stick itself, it is the discomfort of the needle twisting in your vein while the phlebotomist is changing tubes. The current practices of blood draws are based on phlebotomist experience with identifying and actually hitting the vein in a diagonal fashion. When more than one tube is needed the practitioner twists around twisting and untwisting...

H.29 A project aiming to maximize urinary output volume monitoring in hospitalized patients with incontinence Problem Description A project aiming to maximize urinary output volume monitoring in hospitalized patients with incontinence Nearly 6.5 million Americans over the age of 20 have heart failure. In addition, it is estimated that there are 960,000 new heart failure cases annually. Heart failure directly accounts for about 8.5% of all heart disease deaths in the United States. In addition,...

H.27 Preventing complications of thoracentesis with easy identification of thoracic layers during the procedure   Problem Description Thoracentesis is a procedure done to extract pleural fluid and analyze it for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. It’s usually done at bedside and requires a needle entering a the back and going deep towards the pleura, then suctioning the pleural fluid. When doing a thoracentesis, providers cross through multiple layers: the skin- fat layer- muscles- ...

H.26 When your shirt can listen to your lungs: A solution for remote detection of acute lung disease  Problem Description In the era of technological advances, a thorough examination of the respiratory system retains its importance in diagnosing disorders of the respiratory system. Auscultation of the chest is among the oldest bedside diagnostic techniques used to assess airflow through airways. It is an easy, safe, non-invasive and cost-effective diagnostic technique, but requires trained...

H.25 Hypoxemia alert: Detecting oxygen drops with a color-changing ring in high-risk patients  Problem Description Many patients with lung/heart disease experience episodes where their oxygen levels drop due to acute exacerbation of their disease. Patients rarely know that their oxygen levels are dropping until they start feeling very short of breath and need to be hospitalized urgently. This has also been happening very frequently in patients with COVID-19. The goal of this project is to...

H.23 Preventing CAUTI (catheter-associated urinary tract infections) Problem Description Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are a constant topic of conversation for quality improvement in healthcare. The most common HAI is the catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), contributing to 1 in 3 HAIs. These infections arise when bacteria enter the urinary tract through the urinary catheter that has been placed to drain urine from the bladder, and are associated with increased morbidity,...

H.22 Rotary platform for surgical foot pedals Problem Description Ophthalmology is a unique surgical subspecialty in that the case volume is high (10-20 surgeries in one operating room daily) due to short surgical cases (often under 20 minutes for cataract surgery). Cataract surgery is the most commonly performed surgical procedure in the United States and surgical turnover time is paramount in efficiently addressing this need. The surgeon operates temporally (by the patient’s ear) on the same...

H.21 Adaptive Equipment for Mini Enema Use for Individuals with Tetraplegia Problem Description When individuals sustain a spinal cord injury, the gastrointestinal system of the body is often adversely affected as much of the system is controlled by the nerves exiting the sacral segments of the spinal cord. This impairs individuals’ ability to have a bowel movement on command and this must be compensated for by one of three different neurogenic bowel management options: digital stimulation,...

H.20 Improving Safety and Efficiency of Minimally Invasive Surgery by Clearing the Camera Lens Problem Description Improving Safety and Efficiency of Minimally Invasive Surgery by Clearing the Camera Lens  Minimally invasive surgery – surgery that employs laparoscopic and/or robotic tools to mitigate the need for large incisions and the accompanying risks and challenges that patients face – has become ubiquitous across most surgical fields. While there is a wide variety of minimally invasive...

H.16 Improving positioning of chest tubes for trauma Problem Description Clinical Need Patients who have undergone blunt or penetrating trauma to the chest often have hemothorax (blood in the chest cavity) or pneumothorax (air in the chest cavity) that needs to be urgently evacuated. Majority of the time, chest tubes (flexible tubes made out of PVC) are placed at the bedside through the patient’s chest wall without the ability to have any visualization of the inner chest cavity, which can lead...

H.15 Protecting Sterile Processing Technicians from Droplet Dispersal in Decontamination During Manual Cleaning of Instrumentation and Scopes Problem Description Title:  Protecting Sterile Processing Technicians from Droplet Dispersal in Decontamination During Manual Cleaning of Instrumentation and Scopes Problem Statement Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most common and costly hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), accounting for 20% of HAIs in hospitalized patients.  One of the...

H.14 Advancement of Hemodynamic Monitoring through a Novel Swan-Ganz Pulmonary Catheter adaptation that offers Steering Capabilities at the tip Problem Description Advancement of Hemodynamic Monitoring through a Novel Swan-Ganz Pulmonary Catheter adaptation that offers Steering Capabilities at the tip Hemodynamic instability is a prevalent and severe issue in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). It often leads to catastrophic complications such as organ failure, shock, and increased mortality rates,...

H.13 SureTap: A medical device used to reduce blood contamination in lumbar puncture procedures Problem Description Background: A lumbar puncture (LP), or spinal tap, is a procedure to sample the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)  that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.  It is a widely used procedure in both children and adults, most often for the evaluation of infection for cancer cells in the CSF. Normally, the CSF appears similar to water, and has a low cell count which is comprised predominantly...

H.8 Designing a Novel Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Machine For The Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Problem Description Patients that present with an acute heart attack are rushed to the cardiac catheterization laboratory (cardiac cath lab for short) where interventional cardiologists try to save their lives by opening up their occluded coronary artery (arteries that supply the muscle of the heart).  These patients are sick and frequently arrest on the cardiac cath lab’s table. Chest...

H.6 External device for securing PEG tube after placement Problem Description A PEG tube, or percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube, is a medical device used to provide nutrition and hydration to individuals who are unable to take food orally or have difficulty swallowing. It is a flexible tube that is inserted through the abdominal wall directly into the stomach. The PEG tube allows for the delivery of liquid nutrition, medications, and fluids directly into the stomach, bypassing the mouth...

H.5 Development of a device or application to prevent bed pressure ulcers Problem Description Pressure ulcers, also known as bedsores or pressure sores, are a significant healthcare concern that affect individuals who are immobile or have limited mobility. These ulcers develop when prolonged pressure on the skin and underlying tissues restricts blood flow to specific areas of the body. If left untreated, pressure ulcers can lead to severe complications, including infection, tissue necrosis,...

H.4 Over the Scope large dilator balloon Problem Description Esophageal dilatation is a common procedure with high therapeutic yield in most circumstances. Most of these are performed during endoscopy. The most convenient and endoscopist friendly type of balloon is a through the scope (TTS) balloon, but these are limited in their maximal size due to need to fit through the endoscope channel port. Maximal diameter of these balloons when expanded is 20 mm (see Boston Scientific CRE balloon)....

H.3 ICU Self Titrating Drips Problem Description The intensive care unit (ICU) houses the most critically ill and medically complex patients in the entire hospital. In general, admission into an ICU is warranted once the demand of a patient’s medical care exceeds what nursing staff can provide on a non-ICU floor. In other words, what differentiates ICU from non-ICU floors are nursing needs — which in an ideal world would allocate one nurse to one patient (vs one nurse to 3-4 patients in a...

H.2 Lumbar puncture body brace Problem Description A lumbar puncture (also know as a spinal tap) is an essential and highly utilized procedure where a needle is inserted through a patient’s back into the spinal canal to sample cerebral spinal fluid. It is commonly performed at bedside, and used to assess for a multitude of pathology, including infection, malignancy, auto-immune disorders, and brain hemorrhage. In some instances, it can be life saving and needs to be performed emergently. ...

H.1 Development of an Easy to Use and Readily Available Crystalloid Rapid Infuser Problem Description   Rapid infusion of intravenous fluids is a critical component of hypovolemic resuscitation. Hypovolemia is one of the “H’s and T’s” which are the potential causes of cardiac arrest to be remedied if clinically indicated during a code blue situation. The most recent data shows that there are approximately 200,000 in-hospital cardiac arrests each year with around 25% survival rate [1]....

P.1 A better bandaid: reinventing the Band-Aid Problem Description The general public are not experts in wound care. As a result, minor cuts and scrapes can get infected requiring medical attention and antibiotics. In an ideal world, bandages, the first line of defense in any minor wound, are changed at the correct time, fit wound edges exactly and provide negative pressure – the ideal environment for wounds to heal. Current off the shelf bandages (Band-Aid being the most famous name...