Project Summary/Abstract
Clinical training aids such as surgical mannequins and procedural trainers are important tools for
teaching proper technique to physicians and first responders. However, the majority of these
training tools were developed for adult anatomies. Pediatric patients are often more challenging
to treat, but few resources exist for advanced simulation in pediatric critical care education. This
is particularly apparent for airway procedures such as intubation, because children's airways are
significantly different and more difficult to work with than fully developed adult airways. Due to the
difficulty of working with pediatric airways and the relatively low volume of pediatric patients that
physicians and emergency personnel see, many EMTs are told not to try intubation as the failure
rate is too high. Therefore, an advanced pediatric airway trainer could greatly improve clinical
education for pediatric critical care, both for training new physicians and first responders, so that
when a critically ill child is presented they are able to successfully perform lifesaving measures
including intubation.
In this Phase I SBIR project, we will develop an advanced pediatric airway trainer to improve
clinical education for pediatric critical care. Most training aids are developed for adult anatomies;
there are fewer options for modeling pediatric airways, and those that do exist tend to be much
too simple. The primary goal of the project is to design an advanced airway trainer that
incorporates features that are not currently on the market, including modular features to vary the
anatomy and difficulty, incorporation of sensing to map the trainee's path through the airway, and
the ability to incorporate fluids into the airway to simulate the added difficulty when blood or vomit
is present. We will build and test a prototype of the key subsystem for this device: a sensing
module that can map the path of a laryngoscope through the airway to aid in training proper
technique. Together our team will develop an advanced airway trainer that provides direct
feedback to the trainee and incorporates modular components for adjustable difficultly, improving
education and training for pediatric critical care.
