The National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has awarded a grant of $698,178 to two assistant professors at Penn State in University Park, Pa., for their research project on central venous catheter insertion.
The grant was awarded to Scarlett Miller, PhD, assistant professor in the School of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs and the Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, and Jason Moore, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering.
Both Dr. Miller and Dr. Moore are working on developing, testing and implementing a new training method to perform CVC insertions using a programmable robot. The robot's goal is to help apply force to a surgical resident's hand in order to mimic how it feels when inserting a needle into a patient.
The two assistant professors believe the innovative tool will improve the efficiency of residents in performing CVC insertions and build their skills and confidence prior to carrying out the interventions on patients.
Traditionally, surgical patients have learned to insert CVCs by inserting a needle into a human replica and using ultrasound images to guide the catheter into place, a procedure that is difficult to master and leads to complications and stress on the residents.
Using the NIH grant, Drs. Miller and Moore will be able to launch a three-year study to assess how surgical students at the Penn State Hershey (Pa.) Medical Center perform with the new robotic training program.
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