PFI-TT: Optimization of a portable blood flow monitor for improving reconstructive surgery operations and recovery

该创新-技术转化合作伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是通过在手术期间和手术后对进出手术部位的血流进行持续监测的经济实惠的方式改善患者护理和结局。由于传统的手术血流监测系统体积庞大且价格昂贵，因此本项目中采用的方法可以提供一种紧凑且经济实惠的设备，具有为外科医生和患者提供服务的潜力。所提出的系统将增加血流监测设备在重建整形外科中的使用，并有可能扩展到其他应用，例如褥疮监测和/或军事医学中流行的现场应用。所提出的技术可能会导致更少的后续，矫正手术目前所造成的延迟诊断的足够的血流在手术过程中。通过医院内的成本节约和生产力提高，更广泛的社会影响和商业利益将使患者受益，并提高医疗系统的质量和吞吐量。拟议的项目通过减少外科医生的不确定性，即手术重建的组织瓣在手术本身和术后患者恢复期间都有足够的血流，解决了重建整形外科的主要问题。这减少了医院的费用，减少了未报销的后续行动，矫正手术程序，需要纠正皮瓣经历血液流动不足。研究目标是：提高成像深度和外科医生或术后患者支持护士的相关信息质量;提高成像系统稳定性，从而能够更好地做出手术决策;并通过与最终用户（重建外科医生）的市场发现开发用户界面，最终目标是生产改进的原型便携式灌注监测仪，以实现测试和商业化进展。实现这些目标的方法包括成像系统稳定策略的实施，增加成像深度以看到更深（表面下）血管和组织中的流动，并开发了一个用户界面，该界面通过客户发现为外科医生提供首选格式的手术部位血流信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is the improvement in patient care and outcomes resulting from an affordable way to perform continuous monitoring of blood flow to and from a surgical site both during and post-surgery. As conventional surgical blood flow monitoring systems are bulky and expensive, the approach taken in this project allows for a compact and affordable device with the potential to serve surgeons and patients alike. The proposed system will increase the use of blood flow monitoring devices for use in reconstructive plastic surgery, with potential to spread to other applications, such as bedsores monitoring and/or field applications prevalent in military medicine. The proposed technology may result in fewer follow-up, corrective surgeries presently caused by delayed diagnosis of sufficient blood flow during surgery. The broader societal impact and commercial benefit, through cost savings and productivity gains within hospitals, will benefit patients and improve the quality and throughput of the medical system. The proposed project addresses a primary compromise in reconstructive plastic surgery by reducing the uncertainty of surgeons that surgically reconstructed tissue flaps have adequate blood flow both during both the operation itself and post-op patient recovery. This reduces hospitals' costs by decreasing the number of unreimbursed follow-up, corrective surgical procedures required to correct flaps experiencing inadequate blood flow. The research objectives are to: improve depth of imaging and related quality of information to the surgeon or post-op patient support nurse; improve imaging system stabilization, enabling better surgical decision-making; and develop a user interface informed by market discovery with end users (reconstructive surgeons), with the ultimate goal of producing an improved prototype portable perfusion monitor to enable testing and progress towards commercialization. The methods to accomplish these goals include implementation of imaging system stabilization strategies, increased depth-of-imaging to see deeper (sub-surface) blood vessels and flow in tissue, and development of a user interface informed by customer discovery which provides surgeons with surgical site blood flow information in their preferred format.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.