Flosonics Medical

New markets and new frontiers for a novel flow monitoring device

At a glance

An idea is only as impactful as your ability to articulate it. Flosonics Medical, an award-winning medical technology group from Sudbury, Ontario, developed the FloPatch, a wearable device designed to measure blood flow in real time. The FloPatch could revolutionize how doctors and nurses monitor critically ill patients and guide treatment for conditions like massive bleeding and serious systemic infections.

The Challenge

Clinicians are accustomed to using standard vital signs — heart rate and blood pressure — to assess severity of illness and response to treatment, even though these parameters lack precision and are limited in many important ways. How can Flosonics demonstrate that the FloPatch provides new and better information, above and beyond what standard patient monitors can show?

What We Did

We designed a series of virtual simulations to dig deep into the minds of physicians and better understand their thought process around monitoring for critical illness. The subjects were doctors from a wide range of clinical backgrounds — anesthesia, surgery, trauma, emergency medicine — who treat critically ill patients as part of their daily practice. The first iteration of cases involved standard patient monitors only, the second involved the addition of simulated data from the FloPatch. Founders and developers from Flosonics sat in on the simulations, and data from the recorded sessions was transcribed and codified by the Advanced Performance team.

The Impact

The simulations were impactful in show the value add of real time blood flow monitoring. The doctors involved noted that the FloPatch helped them to see dangerously low circulating blood volumes and tailor treatment in a way that vital signs alone could not accurately inform, including:

  • What patients should receive intravenous fluids and blood transfusions, and how much to give
  • When to use vasopressors — powerful medications to augment blood pressure and cardiac function
  • Identify patients who need emergent interventions like surgery or endoscopy to manage bleeding

The Flosonics team was also able to listen in on how physicians think and make decisions in these challenging situations, helping them to guide future messaging and communications.

The power of Immersive Design was on full display with the FloPatch project. What couldn’t be communicated by way of discussion was readily apparent when the end-user was able to experience using the device in real time, in a realistic clinical scenario. We continue to work with the Flosonics team, using Immersive Design to identify and explore new clinical applications for the Flopatch, including prehospital, trauma and critical care.

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