5th Annual Competition on Pediatric Device Innovation at Children’s National Health System

“Now in our consortium’s third year, we’ve seen some impactful innovations advance to the clinical stage as a result of this competition, and we’re hopeful that trend will continue,” said Kolaleh Eskandanian, PhD, executive director of the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, which helps lead the NCC-PDI.

One of these impactful innovations was a noninvasive intracranial pressure meter developed by Vittamed, a start-up company located just outside of Boston, MA. This device, which utilizes ultrasound technology, was originally developed for adults, but there was a clinical need for pediatric patients. Current methods for monitoring intracranial pressure in kids with traumatic brain injuries or hydrocephalus require drilling a hole in the skull to insert a catheter into the brain.