To date, the most common technique of measuring beat-by-beat blood pressure is through the use of an arterial catheter which uses a thin, hollow, tube placed into an artery of the patient. Needless to say, this is often accompanied by pain, infections and (rarely) blood clots.
The founders of Empirical Technologies of Charlottesville, Virginia may have found a solution to these potential risks by creating the first non-invasive, comfortable beat-by-beat arterial blood pressure monitor.
With funding from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), they engineered a wrist brace-style device that has applications both in military and civilian life. The device was trademarked "CareTaker".
"CareTaker uses a very lightly pressurized cuff that goes around the index finger. The slight pressure from the cuff couples to the pulse wave as it goes through the arteries in your finger," said Dr. David Gerdt, president and co-founder of Empirical Technologies. Piezoelectric technology (similar to that used in fireplace lighters and gas stoves) allows CareTaker to record pulse measurements from the cuff. This data is sent to a personnel computer, which extracts blood pressure readings.
In order to test the effectiveness of the technology, Empirical needed funding to build prototypes. Gerdt had heard of the Office of Technology Transfer and Commercialization (OTTC) and he applied for Product Development, Test and Evaluation (PDT&E) funding. It is OTTC that manages the Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technology (CCAT) at California State University, San Bernardino. Empirical Technologies was awarded $75,000 and a market study in November 2005. It was this CCAT funding through OTTC that allowed the company to build their first six pre-production prototypes of CareTaker.
The market study proved helpful as well. "The market study did two things: it confirmed what we already knew and it also opened up some new areas that we didn’t know very much about,” said Gerdt. “It gave us a good feeling that we’d been going along in the right direction and it gave us directions where we should go and, since, have gone." These included additional uses in the military to determine the stress levels in personnel, now being tested by the U.S. Navy.
In the spring of 2006, Empirical Technologies was awarded another $40,000 to build the next 25 CareTaker prototypes, which are under evaluation at Walter Reed Army Hospital, the Army Institute of Surgery and the Naval Health Research Center.
Other CareTaker prototypes are in the process of being integrated into the automatic infusion technology being developed within both the Army and the Navy. Automatic infusion technology intravenously releases medication into a patient via a small infusion pump. In order for the pump to automatically dispense the proper amount of medication, it must obtain the patient’s blood pressure every 15 seconds. This function is carried out by CareTaker. "At the moment, there is no other non-invasive technology that can do this," said Gerdt.
Empirical Technologies began developing the HRWatch in 2005. The HRWatch is wristwatch-style device that provides a continuous measure of a patient’s heart rate. It is the only device to be able to do so without the use of a chest strap or any other electrodes.
In the spring of 2007, Empirical Technologies was also awarded CCAT grant of $20,000 through OTTC to produce 20 pre-production prototypes of the HRWatch. A number of these prototypes are being tested on volunteers at the Naval Hospital Research Center.
The prototypes funded by OTTC continue their importance in determining product applications and features. "You can give the prototypes to doctors and physiologists and they can tell you what they don’t like about them and they also tell you about the features they would like to see," said Gerdt. "You get an idea of what they’re looking for – in other words, you get the market explained to you by people who are going to buy the product."
For more information, please contact:
Juli Gandasatria, Sr. Technology Program Manager
Office of Technology Transfer and Commercialization
E-mail: jgandasa@csusb.edu
Phone: 909-537-7758 / Fax: 909-537-7450