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

这项创新伙伴关系-技术转化（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力在于，通过一种经济实惠的方式，在手术期间和术后对手术部位的血流进行持续监测，改善了患者护理和结果。由于传统的外科血流监测系统体积庞大且价格昂贵，该项目采用的方法允许一种紧凑且价格合理的设备，具有为外科医生和患者服务的潜力。拟议的系统将增加用于重建整形手术的血流监测装置的使用，并有可能扩展到其他应用，例如褥疮监测和/或军事医学中普遍存在的现场应用。目前，由于手术中血流充足的诊断延迟，所提出的技术可能会导致随访矫正手术的减少。更广泛的社会影响和商业效益，通过医院内的成本节约和生产力提高，将使患者受益，并提高医疗系统的质量和吞吐量。拟议的项目解决了重建整形手术的主要妥协，减少了外科医生的不确定性，即手术重建的组织皮瓣在手术本身和术后患者恢复期间都有足够的血流量。这降低了医院的成本，减少了未报销的随访次数，纠正皮瓣血流量不足所需的矫正外科手术。研究目标是：提高成像深度和相关信息的质量给外科医生或术后病人支持护士；提高成像系统的稳定性，使手术决策更好；并根据最终用户（重建外科医生）的市场发现开发一个用户界面，最终目标是生产一种改进的便携式灌注监测仪原型，以便进行测试并朝着商业化的方向发展。实现这些目标的方法包括实现成像系统稳定策略，增加成像深度以观察更深（地下）的血管和组织中的血流，以及开发用户发现告知的用户界面，以他们喜欢的格式为外科医生提供手术部位血流信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.