Point of Care Ultrasound for Maternal Health

孕产妇健康护理点超声

• 批准号: 7936852
• 负责人: Lowell Scott Smith
• 金额: $ 67.08万
• 依托单位: GENERAL ELECTRIC GLOBAL RESEARCH CTR
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-30 至 2013-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7936852
• 关键词: Abdomen; Accounting; Acoustics; Adoption; Africa; Aging; Algorithms; Area; Automobile Driving; Cessation of life; Clinical; Computer software; Coupling; Death Rate; Decision Making; Development; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Diagnostic Equipment; Diagnostic Imaging; Discipline of obstetrics; Economics; Electronics; Emergency Medical Technicians; Emergency Medicine; Environment; Environment and Public Health; Equipment; European; Family Practice; Fetal Distress; Fetal Malpresentation; Frequencies; Gestational Age; Goals; Health; Health Services; Health Services Accessibility; Healthcare; Hospitals; Human Resources; Image; Improve Access; Laws; Lead; Location; Maternal Health; Maternal Mortality; Measurement; Measures; Medical; Methods; Miniaturization; Monitor; Nose; Nurse Midwives; Outcome; Output; Paramedical Personnel; Patients; Penetration; Performance; Physiological; Placenta; Pregnancy; Pregnant Women; Printing; Process; Property; Protocols documentation; Provider; Research; Resolution; Rural; Safety; Semiconductors; Speed; Stethoscopes; Structure; System; Technology; Testing; Time; Tissues; Training; Transducers; Ultrasonic Transducer; Ultrasonography; Underserved Population; United States; Untrained Personnel; Vision; Water; Weight; Work; base; cost; digital; fetal; flexibility; improved; instrument; lithography; novel; point of care; pregnant; prototype; public health relevance; sensor; sound; system architecture; tocol; trend; two-dimensional

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): By coupling a disruptive technology, Digital Micro-Printing (DMP) with advances in miniature, low-cost electronics, the project team will improve access to Point-of-Care ultrasound for Maternal Health thereby reducing healthcare disparities, and enabling substantial reductions in maternal mortality worldwide. Driven by advances in electronic miniaturization and computing power, medical ultrasound is trending toward smaller, portable, lower cost systems with real-time volumetric imaging capabilities. These new attributes will enable more portable, battery powered imagers and monitoring units that reduce disparities in diagnostic healthcare by extending diagnosis outside the traditional hospital environment and especially among previously underserved populations. For example, if universally available in Africa portable ultrasound could detect placenta previa that currently accounts for more than 50,000 maternal deaths annually. While Moore's law is driving these advancements in system performance, commensurate progress in ultrasound sensor technology has lagged, thereby limiting the rapid adoption of ultrasound imaging in remote settings worldwide. Today the associated ultrasound transducer arrays are fabricated by dicing piezoceramic raw material into one-dimensional or two-dimensional structures. While this method is the standard one, it requires very long processing times. The benefits of ubiquitous ultrasound diagnosis and monitoring will not be fully realized unless simpler, flexible probe fabrication methods become available. The team has begun exploring an additive-layer, photoetching fabrication process we call Digital Micro- Printing (DMP) that offers drastic increases in manufacturing speed and improved resolution. In addition, DMP enables the fabrication of novel transducer geometries that lead to simplified ultrasound system architectures and further reduced cost. The proposal aims to develop the capabilities of DMP for the construction of ultrasound transducers. If successful, there becomes an economic impetus to extend DMP to a high throughput, continuous process with fully automated sensor fabrication and further reduced costs. Finally, the project will validate the benefits of this new probe with high-quality, portable imaging consoles in the lab, and with a consultant obstetrician in a clinical environment. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): The broad goal is to make ultrasound imaging as pervasive for Point-of-Care applications as other simple diagnostic equipment, like stethoscopes, by reducing the costs of specialized equipment. We will focus this effort on probes for maternal and fetal health where death rates in parts of Africa exceed 15% and where the US maternal death rates are ten times higher than in parts of Western European. The team will develop lower cost versions of such instruments by coupling the dramatic decreases in size and weight that have become available in ultrasound consoles with a new, additive lithographic manufacturing technology Digital Micro-Printing (DMP) that when fully developed is especially suited to ultrasound probes. These probes will be substantially lower cost and easier to build with automated equipment.

描述（由申请人提供）：通过耦合破坏性技术，数字微印（DMP）以及微型，低成本电子产品的进步，项目团队将改善对孕产妇医疗的关注点超声波的访问，从而减少医疗保健差异并能够大大降低全世界的孕产妇死亡率。 在电子微型化和计算能力方面的进步驱动下，医疗超声趋向于具有实时体积成像功能的较小，便携式，较低的成本系统。这些新属性将通过将诊断扩展到传统的医院环境之外，尤其是在以前服务不足的人群中，从而使更多便携式，电池供电的成像仪和监视单元减少诊断医疗保健中的差异。例如，如果在非洲便携式超声波中普遍可用，可以检测到当前每年有50,000多人死亡的胎盘预备。 尽管摩尔的定律正在推动系统性能方面的这些进步，但超声传感器技术的相称进步却滞后，从而限制了全球偏远设置中快速采用超声成像。如今，相关的超声传感器阵列已通过将压电的原材料划分为一维或二维结构来制造。尽管此方法是标准方法，但需要很长的处理时间。除非更简单，灵活的探针制造方法可用，否则无处不在的超声诊断和监测的好处将无法完全实现。 该团队已开始探索我们称为数字微印（DMP）的添加层，光蚀刻的制造过程，该过程可大幅提高制造速度和改进的分辨率。此外，DMP能够制造出新的传感器几何形状，从而导致简化的超声系统体系结构并进一步降低成本。该提案旨在开发DMP建造超声传感器的能力。如果成功的话，将有一种经济动力将DMP扩展到具有全自动传感器制造并进一步降低成本的高通量，连续过程。 最后，该项目将通过实验室中的高质量，便携式成像控制台以及在临床环境中的顾问产科医生来验证这一新调查的好处。 公共卫生相关性（由申请人提供）：广泛的目标是通过降低专业设备的成本来使超声成像对护理应用程序的普遍存在，例如其他简单的诊断设备，例如听诊器。我们将把这项工作重点放在孕产妇和胎儿健康的探针上，因为非洲部分地区的死亡率超过15％，而美国的孕产妇死亡率是西欧部分地区的十倍。该团队将通过结合超声控制器的尺寸和重量的急剧减小，并使用新的，添加剂的制造技术数字微印（DMP）来开发较低的成本版本，这些尺寸和重量已在超声控制台中获得。探针。这些探针的成本将大大降低，并且使用自动设备更容易构建。