Real-time intraoperative blood loss monitoring
AssigneeAlexander Y. Lin
InventorAlexander Y. Lin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Fluid introduction into the patient during surgery can be tracked more accurately. For example, saline is often introduced to a patient to clean an operating site. The saline is taken from a sterile bucket and introduced to the patient. In one described approach, the system senses the volume or weight of fluid in the sterile bucket and determines any decrease in the volume or weight to be an introduction of fluid to the patient. If, however, additional saline is added to the bucket, that addition is not counted in the fluid tracking and the further decrements from that new fluid amount is what is used to track fluid addition to the patient.
Claims7
An apparatus for assessing real-time intraoperative blood loss from a surgical patient during surgery in a surgical field, the apparatus comprising:
- sensing devices that measure in real-time the volume of liquid directly added to or removed from the surgical patient;
- sensing devices that measure in real-time the volume of liquid indirectly lost by the surgical patient;
- and
- a computing device comprising:
- at least one communication port configured to receive information in real time from the plurality of sensing devices
- a processor circuit configured to process the information from the plurality of sensing devices to determine total volume of blood loss from the surgical patient by:
- summing a total liquid lost from the sensing devices that measure volume of liquid lost by the patient;
- summing a total liquid added from the sensing devices that measure volume of liquid added to the surgical patient;
- subtracting the total liquid added from the total liquid lost to determine a total volume of blood loss;
- wherein the plurality of sensing devices is capable of receiving information comprising data including:
- weight or volume of fluid provided to the surgical patient, number of known volumes of liquid provided to the surgical patient, weight of surgical sponges used on the surgical patient, volume or weight of fluid suctioned from the surgical field, or weight of drapes for the surgical field;
- further wherein the sensing devices that measure in real-time the volume of liquid removed from the surgical patient comprises weight sensors incorporated into surgical drapes or floor mats;
- wherein said drapes or floor mats are positioned underneath the patient and capable of receiving fluids from said patient, which are measured by said weight sensors to calculate the amount of said fluids.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.