PeriOperative

Background and Overview

Under anesthesia required for surgical procedures, a patient experiences vasodilation and loses the ability to properly regulate their body temperature, causing a core-to-peripheral redistribution of body heat [1]. If core body temperature drops below 36.0 ℃, it becomes perioperative hypothermia, which may lead to cardiac events, impaired pharmacodynamics, increased risk of infection, excess blood loss, and even organ failure [1]. In turn, this creates worsened patient outcomes, prolonged hospitalization time, and increased medical expenses. Perioperative hypothermia has been reported to affect about 70% of surgical patients, thus establishing a need for an active warming system to prevent it from occurring [2]. Through a needs assessment conducted in the Dominican Republic in Spring 2022, our team found that many healthcare systems across the country lack effective methods for maintaining patient core body temperature during surgeries. Current solutions used in the United States are expensive, non-reusable, and require manual controls, making it difficult to implement them in the Dominican Republic. Thus, based on our needs assessment and additional feedback from advisors, our team is currently developing a reusable, low-cost heated mattress element with an automatic control system to adjust mattress temperature in response to feedback from non-invasive core body temperature readings.

References:

[1] Ruetzler, K. & Kurz, A. Consequences of Perioperative Hypothermia. Thermoregulation: From Basic Neuroscience to Clinical Neurology, Part II 687–697 (2018).
[2] Bilgin, H. Inadvertent Perioperative Hypothermia. Turkish Journal of Anesthesiology and Reanimation45, 124–126 (2017).

Needs Statement and mission

There is a need for a method of regulating patient core body temperature during surgery to prevent perioperative hypothermia and the ensuing complications that arise in low-resource hospitals. Thus, our team’s mission is to provide a safe, effective, affordable, and reusable solution to allow healthcare systems across the Dominican Republic to effortlessly maintain patient core body temperature during surgery, resulting in improved patient outcomes and a reduced financial burden for both hospitals and patients. Specifically, our team strives to give operating rooms the ability to monitor core body temperature and maintain normothermia in patients during surgical procedures to prevent complications and discomfort that may arise as a result of perioperative hypothermia.

current work

Our team is currently working to develop a functioning heated mattress prototype to deliver to public hospitals across the Dominican Republic. This process involves a combination of assessing needs, brainstorming designs based on safety, effectiveness, and affordability, developing and testing prototypes, receiving feedback from physicians and patients (in the United States and the Dominican Republic), adjusting designs based on feedback, creating a final product, achieving regulatory clearance, and finally, increasing device production (scaling).

team history

The need to regulate patient core body temperature during surgery was brought into MECHENG 450 – Design and Manufacturing III (senior design) through the mechanical engineering department. The project was further developed through work with stakeholders and a functional proof of concept prototype was ultimately created. In January 2016, the project formally entered M-HEAL.

Our team most recently conducted a needs assessment in the Dominican Republic in Spring 2022. During this trip, we spoke with physicians and patients in various hospitals in Santo Domingo, La Vega, and Cotuí. We demonstrated our prototype and received extensive feedback, which we have started to implement in our updated mattress designs. The team aims to return to the Dominican Republic in Spring 2024 to showcase the updated mattress prototype and receive further feedback.