Emory University School of Medicine Archives

Health Connect South

Pediatric Health Technologies

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Pediatric Health Technologies

This week we had experts on the show talking about developments in Pediatric Health Technologies. We were joined in studio by Leanne West, Principal Research Scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute, and Paul Spearman, Chief Research Officer with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. They came by to talk about the innovative collaboration between academic research institutions, Emory and Georgia Institute of Technology, that help accelerate the rate that important technologies can be made available to the pediatric patient population in need. Carly Kiseleczynk, CEO/Founder of BrainChild Technologies also came by to talk about the intriguing technology that allows parents to have more interactive interaction with young infants through their pacifier-controlled device that interfaces and can control applications and toys through non-nutritional sucking patterns.

We discussed the goals of these important Atlanta research institutions of helping pediatric health providers to treat the unique needs of very young patients. They have what they call a “Quick Wins” program where they engage with promising technology companies to help them bring their solutions to market within a very-fast 18 months.

Carly talked about how they were able to advance their work on developing an interactive technology that allows infants to learn how to control toys and tablet-based applications with their sucking patterns. The infants are able to turn on a mobile or night light, or make remote-controlled toys move. And they’re able to advance language skills through interacting with special tablet-based applications that can provide data on certain developmental milestones.

Both of these initiatives can benefit from financial support to allow them to hasten the pace of their research and make these helpful technologies available to pediatric patients in need sooner.

Special Guests:

Leanne West, Principal Research Scientist with Georgia Tech Research Institute

Education, Vanderbilt University
Former High School Physics Teacher
17 years as Research Scientist Georgia Tech Research Institute
Recipient, 2014 Woman of the Year, Georgia Women In Technology

Paul Spearman, Chief Research Officer with Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta

Doctor of Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School
Residency, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, The Ohio State University
Residency, Infectious Disease, Washington University in St. Louis
Professor, Emory University School of Medicine

Carly Kiselyczynk, CEO/Founder, of BrainChild Technologies

PhD, Medical Sciences, Neurosciences, Karolinska Institutet
Published research author
Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale Depression Research Group
Recipient 2012 Ruth L. Kirchstein National Research Service Award

Innovations in Heart Health

This week, for Week 5, we focused on innovations in heart health. Emory physician, researcher, and professor, Dr. Omar Lattouf came by to share about research he’s been working on developing new techniques for some challenging heart disorders, and an exciting project he’s working on that is aimed at reducing the number of patients who die from cardiometabolic syndrome. Dr. Lattouf’s work on how conduction problems are treated by insertion of pace makers using a minimally-invasive approach has helped improved outcomes for countless critically-ill patients. Dr. Lattouf talked about their soon-to-launch study on an application designed to help patients with, or at risk for, cardiometabolic syndrome. The application will empower patients to track key vital signs and other health information and make decisions that will improve key factors such as cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, and more. As Dr. Lattouf shared his personal story about his own family’s experience with heart disease, his passion for helping fight heart disease, which in large part is preventable, was obvious.

Robert Arkin, CEO and Founder of Sensiotec joined us to talk about the way they are using technology and health data to provide clinicians the ability to monitor key vital signs and patient movement patterns in a hands-off way. He talked about how he has long held a desire to help his community on a large scale that he knew that being involved in developing healthcare innovations provides the best way to do that. Robert described how their device uses a special radar technology that is able to measure body movements and even internal organ function, providing real-time vital signs and patient movement patterns. Their technology’s algorithms enable providers to get a degree of predictive information that could potentially help avoid patient falls/injury, or even detect troublesome trends in vital signs that could enable proactive care decisions that could prevent a serious cardiovascular event.

These two health innovators discussed the additional resources they need that could facilitate the acceleration of their respective work with regard to making their solutions available to patients on a larger scale. We are pleased to support their work by helping them tell their story.

Special Guests:

Doctor of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine

Board Certified, American Board of Surgery, American Board of Thoracic Surgery

Performed Georgia’s first domino heart transplant

He and a colleague implanted the state’s first Abiomed biventricular assist system to support the failing heart of a patient suffering from post-cardiotomy shock

Robert Arkin, CEO of Sensiotec