Roanoke team to develop Integrated Smart Bed™ prototype

Roanoke, VA  The Carilion Biomedical Institute (CBI) will lead a local team including  ADMMicro, Medical Facilities of America (MFA), The Carilion Sleep Center and Virginia Tech, to develop a prototype “Integrated Smart Bed™”. Based on research by Professor William Spillman Jr. and Dr. Ken Meissner at the Virginia Tech Applied Biosciences Center, the current Integrated Smart Bed™ prototype is a small bed equipped with fiber optic sensors that capture movement and wirelessly transmit information to a terminal. The next generation prototype will demonstrate that the special fiber-optic sensor has the ability to track movements of a patient in bed, track caregiver activities related to that patient, and electronically report the results to a central nurse station. The goal of this research is to improve patient care in the nursing home environment and to automatically document the level of care being provided.

ADMMicro, a Roanoke based systems engineering company, will be responsible for designing, producing and installing several Smart Beds in an MFA healthcare facility where MFA will evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype over a period of several weeks. The Carilion Sleep Center has agreed to provide an early test environment for ADMMicro before installation of the prototype at MFA.

Don Howell, president and CEO of ADMMicro, says the project "represents a terrific opportunity not only for our company, but for all partnership members." He added, "We see an opportunity to rapidly commercialize this product and are excited to be associated with a local team of such high caliber." Andre Muelenaer, M.D., Medical Director of CBI, states that, "This collaborative effort among the Virginia Tech research group, the Carilion Health System, and private industry represented by ADMMicro and MFA, is the key to our goal at CBI to foster economic development here in the region. We plan to build and distribute the Integrated Smart Bed utilizing local resources.” The Smart Bed could be pivotal to increasing the level of care in chronic care settings such as nursing homes; By monitoring patient movement, caregivers will be armed with information to alert them to move the patient or to check on the patient’s location. Ultimately this process could prevent or help treat pressure ulcers and could prevent slips and falls. The average pressure ulcer costs $20,000 to treat, and complications resulting from hospital acquired pressure ulcers cost a staggering $225,000 per patient for treatment. In aggregate, pressure ulcers cost the US economy nearly $5 billion annually. Slips and falls have tremendous physical, emotional and financial impact as well and affect more than 10 million elders, result in more than 10,000 annual deaths and account for more than $10 billion a year in medical costs.

ADMMicro creates innovative and effective monitoring and control technologies and aspires to be the premier provider of monitoring and control engineering services. ADMMicro represents an unusual combination of Internet speed, innovation, and entrepreneurship – blended with the reliable common sense of power industry engineering.

Carilion Biomedical Institute is dedicated to improving the health and lives of people worldwide by partnering with scientists, researchers, and the medical and business communities to create major advances in healthcare.

Carilion Health System Sleep Center provides complete evaluation, testing, diagnosis and treatment for all types of sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, insomnia and narcolepsy.

Medical Facilities of America, a Roanoke based healthcare provider, owns and operates 30 post acute rehabilitation and long-term care centers throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. The 4,000 plus employees at Medical Facilities of America continually strive to provide the highest level of rehabilitative and skilled nursing services to the patients they serve.  Medical Facilities of America is committed to exploring and investing in state-of-the-art equipment that will set new industry standards in patient care.

Virginia Tech Applied Biosciences Center investigates advanced biochips, biocompatible materials for implants, diagnostic and drug delivery tools, and mathematical modeling of biological systems. The center employs optics to provide new biological research tools for visualization, measurement, analysis and manipulation.