A Low-power wearable acoustic device for accurate invasive arterial pressure monitoring.

Arterial catheters are commonly inserted in hospitalized, critically ill patients to measure blood pressure. For these systems to work properly, a device that measures pressure, called a pressure transducer, must be connected to the catheter, and maintained at the same height as a reference point, usually the heart. So, if the patient moves, the transducer must be manually adjusted by a nurse of physician, adding to the workload of busy clinicians. If not adjusted, this will lead to inaccurate blood pressure measurements. We built a low-power wearable tracking device that uses inaudible acoustic signals to track changes in the patient's position. These height differences can be used to calculate accurate blood pressure measurements automatically. This device can decrease clinician workload by removing the need to move the transducer by hand, allowing providers to focus on other tasks.