Defibrillator Therapy Cable Memory for Shock Data Transfer
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current defibrillators lack the ability to determine if shocks were previously applied to a patient and the energy level of those shocks, making it difficult for healthcare providers to continue effective treatment after assuming care from a previous defibrillator, such as an AED.
Innovation Solution
Embedding a memory within a therapy cable to store data indicative of previous shocks, allowing the current defibrillator to retrieve and use this data to improve treatment, either by reading from the cable or wirelessly receiving data from a previous defibrillator.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If a memory is embedded within a therapy cable to store patient data, then data transfer between defibrillators is enabled, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The therapy cable acts as an intermediary device with embedded memory, storing patient data and transferring it between defibrillators. This mediator approach enables data portability without requiring direct communication protocols between different defibrillator systems, thus solving the information loss problem while keeping the complexity localized to the cable rather than the expensive defibrillator units.
2Productivity
If patient data is transferred from a previous defibrillator to a current defibrillator, then treatment continuity is improved, but data transfer reliability may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by having the previous defibrillator write patient data to the therapy cable's memory before the cable is disconnected. This advance data capture ensures that critical patient information is preserved and available to the current defibrillator, maintaining treatment continuity even when the defibrillator is changed during emergency care.
Data Source
AI summary
An example method is performed by a current defibrillator and includes determining that a memory embedded within a therapy cable coupled to the current defibrillator stores data indicative of a previous shock delivered to a patient, the previous being delivered using a previous defibrillator. The method also includes obtaining the data indicative of the previous shock, and setting an energy level for a subsequent shock based on the data indicative of the previous shock. The method further includes delivering the subsequent shock to the patient at the energy level for the subsequent shock.