An electronic catheter stethoscope developed by two researchers from the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) won first prize May 11 at the annual Cade Museum Prize competition, which drew more than 120 entries from inventors and entrepreneurs across Florida.
Stuart Hart, MD, medical director of CAMLS Tampa Bay Research and Innovation Center, and Phil Hipol, engineering director at CAMLS, were awarded $50,000 in prize money for their invention, known as “eCath.” They also received $10,000 worth of legal services.
Dr. Hart and Hipol were among the “final four” who presented Friday evening to a packed audience at Sante Fe College in Gainesville. The finalists were judged on their product’s innovative quality, breadth of impact and breakthrough potential.
“Our final presentation was the culmination of a six-month process that involved four rounds of judging, with over 30 judges,” said Dr. Hart, an assistant professor in the USF Health Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “We went up against some unbelievably amazing technologies, so it was really thrilling to win.”
About the size of a quarter, the eCath is an electronic device with sensors and a microphone that can be attached to any type of catheter and wirelessly communicate information from sound waves inside the body to a computer, even an iPad. Derived from military and intelligence applications, the technology has the potential to greatly improve healthcare in labor and delivery monitoring, cardiovascular and pulmonary monitoring and the detection of organ damage during surgery.
“We’ve been using the same type of stethoscope for some 150 years,” Dr. Hart said. “This allows healthcare professionals to tap into the blood or other fluids in the body to listen to sounds in a way never heard before. The eCath may do for biomedical acoustics what X-rays did to revolutionize the field of radiology.”
While competing for the Cade Museum Prize, Dr. Hart and Hipol launched BioAcousTech, the first start-up company out of CAMLS Tampa Bay Research and Innovation Center. The company will allow them to pursue continued research and development of eCath, with the aim of bringing the device to market, Dr. Hart said.
For more, check out the Gainesville Sun story at http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120511/ARTICLES/120519885?p=1&tc=pg