Usable Electrical Impedance Tomography for Children in the ICU

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Abstract / Project Summary The aim of this project is to develop a design for a modern Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) device to monitor children in the Intensive Care Unit. Our approach to building this new technology is to follow a rigorous ideation, prototyping and testing process as we aim to advance a novel design into the clinic. Our aims are to (1) generate initial designs for an advanced lightweight EIT belt and (2) assess technical feasibility of a miniaturized, easier to use EIT core device. The project is a collaboration between engineers and clinicians in order to generate a usable form of EIT that can be implemented in daily use. If successful, these inventions will be used to monitor half of the 5,000,000 patients per year in the US that are admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, and to diagnose many hundreds of millions more who have trouble with COPD, sleep apnea and a host of other respiratory conditions at home and in the hospital. Neonates are particularly sensitive to changes in ventilation and there simply are no other tools that can deliver assessment of regional venilation in the NICU.