Birmingham Clinicians and Aston University Experts aim to revolutionise patient safety with Early Detection Devices
Clinicians at Birmingham Women’s and Children's NHS Foundation Trust (BWC) have joined with academics at Aston University to create an innovative technology designed to reduce the risk of injuries caused by extravasation.
Extravasation occurs when some of the drugs treating an illness enter the tissue around the vein instead of going into the vein, causing potential harm and, in the most severe cases, life-changing injuries and permanent scarring.
This complication happens most often when infusing medicines into peripheral IV devices, such as a cannula, but they can also occur when infusing into a central venous access device.
By joining together, BWC and Aston University are combining clinical, academic and engineering expertise to create a sensor that can detect extravasation at its earliest stages.
Karl Emms, Lead Nurse for Patient Safety at BWC, said: "We've done lots of work across our Trust that has successfully reduced incidents. While we've made fantastic progress, there is only so much we can do as early signs of extravasation can be difficult to detect with the human eye.
"The next step is to develop a technology that can do what people can't - detection as it happens. This will make a huge impact on outcomes as the faster we can detect extravasation, the less likely it is that it will cause serious harm.”
The focused work to date addressing the issue has recently been recognised by the Nursing Times Awards 2024, winning the Patient Safety Improvement title for this year.
This new project is supported by SPARK The Midlands, a network at Aston University dedicated to providing academic support to advance healthcare research discoveries in the region.
Luke Southan, Head of Research Commercialisation at Aston University and SPARK UK Director, said: "I was blown away when Karl first brought this idea to me. I knew we had to do everything we could to make this a reality. This project has the potential to transform the standard of care for a genuine clinical need, which is what SPARK is all about.”
Work on another potentially transformative project has also begun as the team are working to develop a medical device that detects the position of a nasogastric (NG) feeding tube.
There is a risk of serious harm and danger to life if NG tubes move into the lungs, rather than the stomach, and feed is passed through them.
Karl explained: "pH test strips can usually detect NG tube misplacement, but some children undergoing treatment can have altered pH levels in the stomach. This means this test sometimes does not work."
"A medical device that can detect misplacement can potentially stop harm and fatalities caused by these incidents."
SPARK will bring together engineers, academics and clinicians for both projects to develop the devices for clinical trial, with a goal of the technologies being ready for clinical use in three to five years.
Luke added: "BWC is one of our first partners at SPARK and we're really excited to work with them to make a vital impact on paediatric healthcare in the Midlands and beyond."