2024 Solutions for Improving Patient Care, Processes, Education, and Outcomes

Solutions for Improved Patient Care

Smart Tourniquet Control System Optimizing Vessel Occlusion during Orthopedic Surgery

The new Smart Tourniquet Control System is designed to improve on existing surgical tourniquet technology that limits blood loss by obstructing blood flow near the surgery site. The new device includes a control loop that allows for pressures far lower than with standard tourniquets, reducing post-operative nerve injury and improving patient outcomes following orthopedic procedures. Inspired by the creators’ experiences in operating rooms at Carle Health and other hospitals, this innovation is the work of a team led by CI MED physician-innovators Jacob Gasienica and Travis Neuberger.

Contributing team members: Josh Jones, Dennis Compton, Varun Pilla, Claire Landewee, and Trevor Huene.

RxMind App Personalizes Discharge Education for Patients Leaving the Hospital

RxMind is a mobile app designed to enhance patient care during the pivotal time when patients are being discharged from the hospital to home. The system would provide personalized and accessible medication education to ensure that patients understand and follow their new treatment plans.

“By personalizing the discharge education process, RxMind will empower patients to adhere to their medications while providing doctors insights into patients’ knowledge gaps ahead of their post-discharge follow-up visit,” said physician-innovator Ariana Barreau, one of the team members who designed RxMind.

The app would also allow patients to easily access and review educational materials and quizzes on their personal devices after discharge. RxMind is particularly well-positioned to enhance medication adherence among patients who are being discharged following a stroke. The system also provides hospital administrators data insights into patient risk factors that may help reduce complications from medication non-adherence.

In addition to Barreau, CI MED students Jennifer Carson-Gonzalez and Radhika Duvvuri are leading development of RxMind.

MenoPatch Personalized Therapy for Menopause

MenoPatch Personalized Therapy for Menopause offers unique therapy for the well-being of women impacted by menopause. It introduces several key improvements over existing technologies and processes. MenoPatch is poised to advance several facets of health care and patient well-being that will contribute to the evolution of patient-centric, safe, and effective health care practices. The expected impact of this innovation spans improved patient outcomes, increased patient satisfaction, and advancements in research bettering the lives of countless women around the world.

MenoPatch is the work of a team led by physician-innovators David Krist, Anila Mehta, and Lotanna Nwandu. Gies College of Business MBA candidate Adam Szeremeta also assisted in development plans.

Innovation to Advance Safety of Dialysis Care for Kidney Disease Patients

Auvi is a new device aimed at advancing clinical care, improving safety, and allowing for a better quality of life for patients receiving dialysis care for chronic kidney disease. Auvi is designed to continuously monitor arteriovenous fistulas – surgically created connections between a vein and an artery, often embedded in the arm – to provide access for delivering life-saving dialysis care. If surgically created fistulas fail, patients must resort to using indwelling catheters or grafts, which given their prosthetic nature are prone to life-threatening infections. Carle Illinois College of Medicine physician-innovator Richie Li says his team’s innovation includes a patch with sensing modalities attached near the fistula to monitor blood flow. Much like continuous blood sugar monitors, the new device would alert clinicians to developing problems in how the fistula is functioning under the skin, informing clinical decision-making and providing peace of mind. 

In addition to Li, CI MED students Szymon Kasperek and Eric Moran are leading development of the new device.

Paracentra: World's First Autonomous Paracentesis Device   

Paracentra represents a groundbreaking concept in care for patients with cirrhosis of the liver. The innovation under development by physician-innovators at Carle Illinois College of Medicine is intended to streamline the procedure known as paracentesis – insertion of a needle to drain the painful accumulation of fluid called ascites from a cirrhosis patient’s abdominal cavity.  

Traditionally, paracentesis involves the identification of ascites by a skilled medical provider using ultrasound technology, followed by the careful drainage of the fluid via needle puncture. The procedure may be conducted to either diagnose infection or relieve abdominal pain and pressure.

The Paracentra team’s goal is to streamline and automate the paracentesis process with a fully mobile robotic arm equipped with advanced ultrasound technology and autonomous operation capabilities. The device’s ultrasound guidance system enables safe needle placement and precise advancement into the peritoneal cavity, allowing the fluid to drain effectively through an external catheter. Automating the paracentesis process also expands the accessibility of paracentesis to more patients, including those in rural and under-resourced areas where timely paracentesis is less common.

Paracentra is being developed by CI MED students Jermaine Chambers, Anders Gould, and Dara Nafiu. Their team includes engineering students Hrushi Athreya, Jacob Boss, Kareem Habayeb, Amy Lang, Alayna McDermott, Anuj Sesha, Inez Yaagoub, and MBA students Mindy Cook and Ahmed Mouhtaine.

3D IS Holder 

The 3D IS Holder encourages post-surgical patients to regularly use the incentive spirometer – a device that uses deep breathing exercises to prevent postoperative pulmonary complications (PPC) such as pneumonia and respiratory failure. The 3D IS Holder attaches to the patient’s bed rail and has two primary functions: to act as a designated location for the patient's incentive spirometer and to remind patients to use the spirometer as prescribed. The holder keeps the spirometer close at hand without cluttering the hospital room and reduces handoff errors by allowing the staff to quickly determine if a patient has been given a spirometer. The 3D IS Holder lights up to alert the patient when it’s time to complete their spirometry exercise, and an optical sensor detects when the incentive spirometer is removed from the holder and replaced. The 3D IS Holder tracks total incentive spirometer usage by the patient, allowing the clinician to intervene with patient education when goals aren’t met. The new holder is compatible with existing incentive spirometers on the market.

This project – led by CI MED physician-innovators Nathaniel Brooke, Joanne Chan, and Devan Govan – is the first CI MED Capstone Innovation to be approved by the Institutional Review Board for a clinical trial. The team includes MBA candidate Alice Fan (Gies College of Business); Engineering Master’s candidates Sunny Liang, Mike Koh, and Antoni Okinczyc; and Engineering undergraduates Po Kang Chen, Habib Rehman, Claudia Reyes, and Maddie Szkwarek from The Grainger College of Engineering.

Improving Processes, Education, and Outcomes

HystAssist: New Tool Designed to Improve Training, Safety for Difficult Gynecological Surgeries

A new surgery simulation tool created by Carle Illinois College of Medicine physician-innovators could be a game-changer for new surgeons training to perform common but difficult-to-learn gynecological procedures. The designers hope to improve patient outcomes by creating true-to-life practice for obstetrics and gynecology residents to safely practice each step in a vaginal hysterectomy before assisting with and performing real patient surgeries.

Some hysterectomies are performed using cameras called laparoscopes to guide the surgeon, but vaginal hysterectomy without a laparoscope remains the preferred treatment in many cases because it requires less recovery time for the patient. This minimally invasive procedure in which the uterus and often the cervix are removed through an incision in the vagina requires more hands-on practice, according to CI MED student Manaka Sato, who designed the new simulator, along with fellow CI MED student Brittany Vill. “Vaginal hysterectomies are more difficult to learn compared to laparoscopic hysterectomies. There is less physical space for the surgeon to work, most of the procedure requires tactile familiarity with important ligaments, and few training tools exist to practice pertinent steps of the case,” Vill said. 

The new HystAssist simulator consists of an external pelvic model, surrounding structures such as the bladder, and a realistic internal anatomy component where trainees can practice the steps of the hysterectomy procedure from beginning to end. A prototype of the new device is under development in partnership with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign undergraduate students and master’s degree candidates in bioengineering.

The potential impact on women’s health care is great. Hysterectomy is the most common gynecological surgery treatment for conditions including sagging (prolapsed) uterus, endometriosis, abnormal uterine bleeding, and chronic pelvic pain, with approximately 600,000 performed each year in the US.

“It can be difficult for training surgeons to gain the practice they need to ensure a good outcome,” Sato explained. Under current standards, OB/GYN resident physicians are expected to log at least 15 cases during their residency in which they played an active role in both a vaginal hysterectomy and a laparoscopic hysterectomy. “Our solution would allow learners to practice the steps and techniques at least five times before acting as the first assistant in a real vaginal hysterectomy case,” Vill said.

The device may also be useful to surgeons who want to improve their skills or who need practice with other OB/GYN and urological procedures, including pelvic reconstruction.

“Improving surgical training will improve the health care system for surgeons, patients, and hospitals through improvements in the practice of medicine, patient care, patient safety, and medical education,” Sato said.

The HystAssist Simulator is one of the Capstone Innovations proposed by the future physician-innovators in Carle Illinois’ Class of 2024. In the final phase of Carle Illinois’ engineering-based, innovation-oriented curriculum, fourth-year students research a problem identified during their clinical rotations, propose a solution, and then work with a cross-disciplinary team, including engineering students from The Grainger College of Engineering, to develop a new prototype or process that will potentially change the practice of medicine and improve patient outcomes. Collaborators on this project include Katherine Maskel and Monica Block (MBA candidates, Gies College of Business); Ainsley Hanner, Aidan Rogers, and Shayna Talpallikar (Bioengineering, Undergraduate students); and, Jack McDonald, Evi Rondo, and Monica Sanchez (Bioengineering, master’s degree candidates).

SurgerySync Targets Efficiencies in the OR

SurgerySync is a new system that taps into cutting-edge technology to automatically track multiple dimensions of operating room efficiency at scale.

The innovation is designed to replace the manual method of OR efficiency audits that rely on an expert reviewer to be physically present during surgical procedures.

The SurgerySync system is designed to allow hospitals to automatically track the efficient use of resources in any kind of surgical procedure at any time to identify ways to cut OR costs, maximize OR utilization, and minimize supply waste. 

CI MED physician-innovators Mark Nyaeme, Sam Rawal, and Alex Teague predict these efficiencies will improve both patient and staff satisfaction.

Mammary Lane:  New App Promotes Safe Connections for Sharing Breast Milk

 A new app offers a user-friendly and safe solution for parents who want to feed their infants breast milk but are unable to produce it naturally. The Mammary Lane app under development at Carle Illinois College of Medicine allows parents to safely connect with breast milk donors in two ways: through at-your-fingertips access to information on donor banks in the local area and through direct peer-to-peer connections.

The app includes features designed to ensure safe storage and to prevent contamination of donated breast milk based on guidelines from the Academy on Breastfeeding.

The app is the work of CI MED physician-innovators Peggy Palsgaard and Nick Tucker, with assistance from MBA candidate Jay Vachhani from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

WeThrive App: Connecting Patients to Best-Fit Mental Health Services

 A team of CI MED physician-innovators is developing a new platform that could help alleviate the shortage of mental health services, especially in rural areas.

The new app, called WeThrive, aims to connect patients with mental health professionals looking to fill their therapy groups with best-fit matches. CI MED students Aksal Vashi and Priya Shankarappa say group therapies are documented to be of equal efficacy to one-on-one therapy for many patients.

The team’s platform would use robust selection criteria to identify patients who would best fit into therapy groups regardless of location, expanding care to rural and underserved areas. Vashi also says the new approach would give patients additional comfort of being in a group that shares compatible characteristics and preferences, based on known standards.

In addition to MD candidates Vashi and Shankarappa, the WeThrive team includes Illinois MBA candidates David Fetterman and Chris Xu.