AVERT-IT

C3 Amulet Press Release

Announcement

C3 Amulet Ltd., based in Dingwall, Ross-shire has been awarded a European Commission grant to lead a consortium researching the prediction of adverse events in the care of brain injury patients.

The grant, totaling  € 1.7 millions has been awarded under Framework 7 – Advanced ICT for Risk Assessment and Patient Safety.  The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) bundles all research-related EU initiatives together under a common roof playing a crucial role in reaching the goals of growth, competitiveness and employment.

The Background

Intensive Care patients can experience Adverse Events associated with sudden episodes of low blood pressure. These Adverse Events may impact all of the main organs resulting in longer lengths of stay, increased care costs and reducing quality of outcomes. Existing technologies enable to clinicians to know when these events have occurred and treat the effects.

Medical techniques for avoiding Adverse Events currently exist, but clinicians don’t have a reliable way to predict the occurrence, so there’s no opportunity for intervention.

Research indicates average lengths of stay can be reduced by up to 30%, and outcomes improved for a similar proportion of patients, if these Adverse Events can be avoided through prediction and intervention. Potential savings across the EU exceed 5 billion euros, annually.

A model for predicting Adverse Events offers potential for improving outcomes across a wide range of conditions and or illnesses.

The Objectives

The main objectives of the project are

  • Understanding the association between multiple patient parameters and arterial hypotension (sudden drop in blood pressure)
  • Development of a software application to predict the occurrence of arterial hypotension based on recognition of the associations described above
  • Validation of the solution in clinical trials
  • Exploitation model for the commercialisation of the software in product/service sales across international markets

The Resources

The main research will focus on combining resources:

  • Historic patient care data from 22 specialist brain injury units across Europe
  • Grid technologies for secure data access across multiple specialist units and hospitals
  • Baysian Artificial Neural Network (BANN) techniques for analysing data
  • Specialists in treating TBI from 6 leading hospitals, in Sweden, Germany, Italy, Spain, Lithuania and Scotland
  • C3 Amulet’s expertise in device monitoring, data analysis and reporting, and software development, distribution and support

The Outputs

C3 Amulet has exclusive access to the results of the research for commercial exploitation in products and services. Potential opportunities for that exploitation include

  • Monitoring of Intensive Care Patient treatment
  • Clinical trials of both drugs and medical devices
  • BANN techniques for asset performance management and environmental monitoring and control

Consortium Members

C3 Amulet Ltd.

Pera Innovation Ltd.

Uppsala Universitet

Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg

Azienda Ospedaleria San Gerardo Di Monza

Kauno Technologijos Universitetas

The University Of Glasgow

Greater Glasgow Health Board

Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron

Philips Medizin Systeme Böblingen Gmbh

About C3 Amulet Ltd.

Since 1995 C3 Amulet Ltd has led the software industry in Asset Performance Management solutions for Oil and Gas, Utilities and other asset based industries.  The Avert-IT project brings together C3’s expertise in transforming device level data and the Universities expertise in patient care, enabling the drive to evidence based medicine through monitoring and analysis.

For more information please contact the project Exploitation Manager – Steve Reeves on +44(0) 7810-541601,  at steven.reeves@c3amulet.com or visit our blog at http://avertit.wordpress.com/