Title: A hands-free pulse sensor to decrease “hands-off time” during CPR
Team: Luis Fernando Ayala Cardona, Alvin Kristoff Agatep, Kaleo Leonhardt, Leslie Martinez
Client: Emergency Medicine – Rahul Nayak, MD (Stanford University Medical Center)
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, most commonly referred to as CPR, is a life saving procedure involving performing chest compressions on patients that have undergone cardiac arrest. While CPR is an effective method of gaining back spontaneous circulation of blood, a major concern for medical specialists during this procedure is hands-off time. Hands-off time refers to the duration when chest compressions are interrupted in order to check the patient’s major vitals. One of the most important vitals to check for during CPR is a blood pulse, to verify whether the patient has had spontaneous recirculation and their heart has begun beating on its own.
Our unmet need centers on a method to decrease hands-off time during CPR to decrease mortality rate in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients
Title: A hands-free method for pain relief to enhance compliance with cold treatment and therapy
Team: Megan McCreight, Kim Hwang Yeo, Daria Sondossi, Eric Chong
Client: Point-of-care – Janice Schwartz, MD (UCSF)
Cold therapy has been used for centuries to reduce pain and swelling of muscles and joints. The modern standard of care is incredibly simple, cubed ice in a plastic bag or a bag of frozen vegetables, though there are many technologies on the market that attempt to improve upon this solution. While cold therapy is simple to use and has relatively few side effects, patient adherence to cold therapy recommended by a doctor remains an issue, specifically for difficult to treat areas, such as the shoulder.
Our unmet need centers around developing an easy to use method for reducing pain in post-shoulder injury patients over 50 years old in order to increase patient adherence
Title: Streamlining esophageal variceal banding to stem hemorrhage
Team: Josephine Buchan, Vivian Lu, Joseph Liu, Nilo Saeed Tehrani
Client: Hepatology – Courtney Sherman, MD (UCSF)
Esophageal varices are large, swollen blood vessels around the esophagus. The most common cause of esophageal varices is increased pressure (portal hypertension), which most commonly results from severe scarring of the liver, known as liver cirrhosis. When scar tissue blocks the flow of blood around the liver, the body will send blood via veins in the stomach or esophagus instead, causing the small, thin-walled veins to swell and form varices. Varices are commonly treated by variceal ligation, a procedure in which tiny elastic bands are wrapped around the varices to stop variceal bleeding. Despite this treatment, variceal rebleeding is common and as a result, physicians typically recommend patients to undergo an endoscopy to check for formation of esophageal varices every two weeks.
Our unmet need centers around an improved method to treat esophageal varices in patients with cirrhosis (ages 40-70) in order to prevent future bleeding to improve patient quality of life and decrease mortality.
Title: Hands-free treatment of severe congenital palmar and plantar hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) via iontophoresis
Team: Athena Lopez, Natalie Celt, Nicole Malow, Niki Shakouri
Client: Pediatric medicine – Sunghoon Kim, MD (UCSF)
Iontophoresis is an at-home solution for treating palmar and plantar hyperhidrosis, an extreme sweating disorder that affects the hands and feet. Treatment consists of placing the hands or feet in two small aluminum bath trays, each filled with tap water, for 20-30 minutes. A mild current inhibits the sweat glands and temporarily reduces patients’ sweating. Despite effective treatment outcomes, the iontophoresis device requires patients to sit still for long periods of time as a result, patient compliance to treatment is poor. Thus, a method to allow for treatment with daily activity for patients with palmar and plantar hyperhidrosis using at-home iontophoresis devices to increase treatment adherence is needed.
Our unmet need centers around creating an Iontophoresis wearable device for palmar and plantar hyperhidrosis that allows for effective treatment with daily activity.
Title: Improved data collection from asthma patients using telehealth services
Team: Paulina Salgado Marshall, Kelly Amanna, Christopher Lung, Jessica Malow
Client: Telehealth – George Su, MD (UCSF)
Spirometry is a physiological test that assesses lung function by measuring the amount and/or speed of air that can be inhaled and exhaled. Spirometry aids in the diagnosis and classification of obstructive lung diseases and assists in quantifying response to treatment over a period of time. Asthma is a long-term disease of the lungs that causes a patient’s airways to become inflamed and narrow, making it difficult to breathe. The disease affects 1 in 13 Americans and has a high prevalence of being under-treated and under-recognized in patients ages 60+ in the United States. While spirometry has the potential to improve diagnosis and treatment, there is a challenge in obtaining accurate and repeatable spirometry measurements due to the lack of supervision and coaching during the data collection, specifically in telemedicine.
Our unmet needs centers around designing a guided spirometer device to increase the reliability of data collected from of ederly asthma patients using telehealth services.
Title: Improvement of a laparoscopic device to reduce hemorrhage-related complications during surgery
Team: Renesmee Kuo, Asa Smith, Isha Shah, Jessica Li
Client: Bariatric & GI Surgery – Jonathan Carter, MD (UCSF)
Laparoscopy is a type of surgical procedure that allows surgeons to access the inside of the abdomen and pelvis without having to make large incisions in the skin. Compared to traditional open surgeries, laparoscopic surgeries generally result in quicker recovery times, shorter hospital stays, and lower mortality in patients. Despite this, internal bleeding remains a major complication in laparoscopic surgery and often requires surgeons to make a larger abdominal incision or revert to open surgery. During rare bleeding complications, it is difficult to identify the leakage site, as many of the common laparoscopic tools, including the ValleyLab Laparoscopic Handset, contain only the following five functions: suction, irrigation, cutting, coagulation, and electrode retractability.
Our unmet need is centered around developing a laparoscopy handset CO2 pump to identify leakage sites and decrease bleeding complications during laparoscopic surgery
Title: Increased efficacy in reducing maternal blood loss in obstetric hemorrhage
Team: India Ott, Colin Jensen, Weiyu Wu, Divya Empranthiri
Client: OBGYN – Suellen Miller, MD (UCSF)
Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is a serious condition that causes uncontrollable maternal bleeding after giving birth and remains the leading cause of maternal morbidity worldwide. Extreme blood loss through hemorrhaging causes blood volume to decrease and makes it difficult for the heart to pump blood consistently throughout the body, often leading to hypovolemic shock. PPH accounts for 1 in 4 maternal deaths globally, with particularly high occurrences in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). One method to manage PPH is through the use of a non-pneumatic anti-shock garment (NASG) that, when fitted correctly, applies pressure to the lower abdomen and forces blood to the essential organs – heart, lungs and brain. This current standard is difficult to assemble, put on, take off, and clean – all of which leads to the underutilization of a life-saving device.
Our unmet need centers on creating a simpler method to reverse the effects of hypovolemic shock secondary to postpartum hemorrhages and reduce the mortality rate specifically for women in maternity facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Title: Identifying risk of stent malfunction in biliopancreatic stent patients.
Team: Baden Dense, Nicole Wang, Maya Horenstein, Jianhua Lim
Client: Cardiology – Craig Munroe, MD (UCSF)
Patients with hilar biliary strictures experience chronic narrowing or collapsing of the hilar region of the bile duct. This phenomenon occurs when the bile duct gets smaller or narrower, making it difficult for bile to pass from the liver to the small bowel, causing a buildup of bile. Endoscopic stenting of biliopancreatic stents is the most common standard of care for obstruction of the common bile duct or of the main pancreatic duct. Stents are tubular devices made of plastic or metal that are used to hold open or clear passages in the body. Stents often require removal and replacement due to stent failure and other post-implantation effects, however, stent failures are often difficult to diagnose and monitor.
Our unmet need is centered around a method to detect stent occlusion in vivo in patients with hilar biliary strictures that are treated with biliopancreatic plastic stents to prevent stent restenosis and stent infection