Putting fresh eyes on current technology, while offering students first-hand experience in the real world of medicine. Tenet Health Central Coast and the Cal Poly Department of Biomedical Engineering have teamed up to form a clinical immersion program, BICEP, to develop innovative prototypes to advance technology in the medical field.
A blend of school and real life.
Now in year two of a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, Cal Poly Biomedical Engineering students go in-clinic at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center to put engineering-minded sets of eyes on the everyday happenings in healthcare, searching for the next, big medical advancement.
“These students have been just incredible with their ideas and their engagement in the departments, thinking outside of the box,” said Emily Hosford, Director of Women and Children’s Services for Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center. “They have come up with some really great ideas that I think really will change healthcare.”
So, what have the students devised?
“There are a lot of treatments out there, and not necessarily any diagnostic treatments,” said Minh Vo, a Cal Poly student in BICEP, regarding blood clots.
Vo and his partner, Evan Manley, were in the intensive care unit at Sierra Vista when they saw the opportunity to advance modern clot-diagnosing technology, especially for those at high-risk of a blood clot, like post-surgery. Simply put, find the clots before they develop.
“My prototype basically consists of a strap that wraps around a patient's leg,” said Vo. “We're going to have two devices on it, the electromyography sensor and the vibration motor.”
Vo’s prototype would hook up to software, offering healthcare professionals readings, that could be abnormal, to show the possible formation of a blood clot.
For McKinna Lee, it was the inability of doctors and nurses to accurately measure blood loss after a mother gave birth. Now pursuing her master’s degree in engineering management at Cal Poly, Lee was part of year one of the program as a biomedical engineering student.
After being present for a C-section birth, Lee and her partner focused her time creating a prototype to measure blood loss in real-time, during and after birth. With the instantaneous, accurate information, doctors could make more informed decisions in the case of postpartum hemorrhaging, excessive bleeding after giving birth.
“You're not accounting for that blood in real-time,” said Lee.
The prototypes are developed in mere weeks, so Lee’s original idea was passed on to other students at Cal Poly over the past year.
“Our first one was literally a DIVA Cup, some duct tape, and some tubing that we found, which is still super viable and proof of conception, but to see what they made was so incredible,” said Lee. “I feel like bridging the gap between engineers and medical professionals can help so much because they have such a plethora of knowledge of things that patients need, things that they need, things that the surgeons need, to make every patient outcome better, or for their quality of work life to be better as well.”
The two students’ prototypes are just two of the many devices developed in a partnership with high hopes of “keeping it local.”
“We typically send folks up to the Bay Area or down to L.A. to go work on these kinds of problems. We're really hoping to foster some of that innovation and development of medical device business here on the Central Coast,” said Chris Heylman, an associate professor for Cal Poly’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Lee's prototype was advanced to the senior capstone project at Cal Poly during the past year, where Vo's will eventually end up. Cal Poly’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) then looks at the product to see how, if approved for use in the medical field, they could be formed into a business and commercialized.
The American Red Cross is urging people to donate blood amid a nationwide shortage. Twin Cities Community Hospital is hosting a blood drive Tuesday, September 19th from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Click here for more information.
