{"response":{"award":[{"abstractText":"The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the widespread adoption of an efficient and accessible technology to integrate patient photographs with radiology images to improve patient safety, increase healthcare efficiency, and reconnect radiologists with their patients. A successful commercialization outcome is this adoption leading to direct cost-savings in healthcare by improving patient safety and hospital quality; even a 10% improvement in radiologists' efficiency leads to healthcare savings of ~$900 million. The broader impact of this novel technology is that it can provide patient authentication for the digital data being generated by hundreds of new digital medical devices. Any of this digital data could end up in the wrong patient's medical record and authentication is crucial. Rapid advances in smart, telehealth systems present the danger that patients can turn into mere data, but these photographs can return the interpreting physician's focus to the patient, leading to improved outcomes through patient-centered care. The technology achieves this by allowing doctors to connect with the patient as a person before diving deep and exploring data at anatomic, physiologic and molecular levels.\r\n\r\nThis Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will seamlessly and securely integrate a radiology patient identification system to improve patient safety, by avoiding preventable errors, and enhance throughput. This transformative approach overcomes the failure of existing patient identification methods while harnessing the power of an embedded camera system to improve patient care. Technology to automatically and simultaneously obtain and embed audio and video data of the patient during X-ray and CT acquisition will be developed under this award. Specifically, the following objectives will be completed: 1) develop a mature software framework for rapid system scalability to a large number of hospitals, 2) expand the system to CT scanners and stationary X-ray machines, 3) improve image quality by adding infrared stereoscopic image capture, to ensure photographs add value even when obtained in low light settings, 4) enhancing the cameras with video and audio capabilities, which will improve patient identification, while simultaneously gathering rich clinical information, and 5) refine the triggering method for photograph acquisition. The long-term objectives are to increase the detection rate of wrong-patient errors by embedding an intrinsic, externally visible biometric identifier with medical imaging studies; and increase interpreting physician throughput by decreasing interpretation time.\r\n\r\nThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.","activeAwd":"false","agency":"NSF","awardAgencyCode":"4900","awardee":"CAMERAD TECHNOLOGIES, LLC","awardeeAddress":"2098 SYLVANIA DR","awardeeCity":"DECATUR","awardeeCountryCode":"US","awardeeDistrict":"04","awardeeDistrictCode":"GA04","awardeeName":"Camerad Technologies, LLC","awardeePhone":"7349457692","awardeeStateCode":"GA","awardeeZipCode":"30033","cfdaNumber":"47.084","date":"05/14/2019","dirAbbr":"TIP","divAbbr":"TI","estimatedTotalAmt":"749942","expDate":"04/30/2025","fundAgencyCode":"4900","fundProgramName":"SBIR Phase II","fundsObligated":["FY 2019 = $749,942.00","FY 2020 = $10,000.00"],"fundsObligatedAmt":"759942","histAwd":"false","id":"1853142","initAmendmentDate":"05/14/2019","jrnl":[{"artTitl":"Lessons Learned in Change Management in Deploying Novel Informatics Solutions: Experience Implementing a Point-of-Care Patient Photography System with Radiography","auth":"Wick, Carson A. and Tridandapani, Srini and Heilbrun, Marta E. and Hanna, Tarek and Safdar, Nabile and Bhatti, Pamela","authIndCode":"N","dgtlObjId":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-023-00796-y","jrnlTitl":"Journal of Digital Imaging","jrnlVol":"36","jrnlYr":"2023","parPblcId":"10422819"}],"latestAmendmentDate":"03/11/2024","managingPec":"537300","orgCodeDir":"15000000","orgCodeDiv":"15030000","orgLongName":"Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships","orgLongName2":"Translational Impacts","orgUrl":"https://beta.nsf.gov/tip/ti","parentUeiNumber":"","pdPIName":"Carson A Wick","perfAddress":"575 14th St NW, STE 100","perfCity":"Atlanta","perfCountryCode":"US","perfDistrict":"05","perfDistrictCode":"GA05","perfLocation":"Global Center for Medical Innovation","perfStateCode":"GA","perfZipCode":"303185697","pi":["Carson A Wick carsonwick@gmail.com"],"piEmail":"carsonwick@gmail.com","piFirstName":"Carson","piId":"269985259","piLastName":"Wick","piMiddeInitial":"A","poEmail":"patherto@nsf.gov","poName":"Peter Atherton","poPhone":"7032928772","primaryProgram":["01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT","01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT"],"progEleCode":"537300","program":"SMALL BUSINESS PHASE II, Smart and Connected Health, Health Care Enterprise Systems, Software Services and Applications, Health and Safety, SBIR/STTR CAP","progRefCode":"5373, 8018, 8023, 8032, 8042, 8240","projectOutComesReport":"
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Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind only heart disease and cancer. Within the field of medical imaging or radiology, \"wrong-patient\" errors, where one patient's imaging studies are placed in another patient's electronic health record, can lead to serious problems for both patients. Furthermore, wrong-patient errors expose healthcare providers to severe litigation risks and reputational damage. This SBIR Phase II award addresses this problem by attaching patient photographs to those X-ray studies. These photographs are taken automatically at the same time as the X-ray images and provide patient identification information to detect and reduce wrong-patient errors. In addition to reducing wrong-patient errors, patient photographs also provide a \"mini physical exam\" to radiologists, who normally do not have any visual information about the patient nor their condition.

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Intellectual Merit: Camerad Technologies, through its PatCam System, provides radiologists and other healthcare professionals with clinical context and patient identification in the form of wide-angle, patient photographs. The PatCam System automatically captures the patient's photograph simultaneously with his/her X-ray, securely transmits the photographs, and adds these photographs to portable X-Ray studies in the hospital system for view by the radiologist.

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This SBIR Phase II award expanded the capabilities of the technology developed during the corresponding SBIR Phase I award. The PatCam System was expanded from portable X-ray machines to stationary X-ray machines, allowing for more complete coverage of the patient population. Photographic image quality was improved through image processing, better low-light imaging, and reliable AI-based automatic photograph rotation. The PatCam System software was expanded and streamlined including new integrations, optimizations, and a web-app for system monitoring and reporting. Audio and video recording capabilities were added to the PatCam System. This will allow patients to personally relay their condition and concerns to the radiologist to improve patient care. Lastly, automatic triggering of photograph acquisition was implemented using a microphone to sense the sound made by the X-ray machine when an X-ray is taken, greatly improving the reliability of the PatCam System. 

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The PatCam Cameras were enhanced with new functionality and applications. Two new PatCam Camera models were developed for additional types of X-ray machines. A display screen and user interface were added to the PatCam Camera to allow the machine operators to review the photographs prior to sending them to the hospital system.

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In addition to an existing deployment and Emory University (Atlanta GA), the PatCam System was expanded to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Birmingham, AL) to gain operational feedback and broaden the impact of this work. Through this expansion, the PatCam System was integrated with different hospital software and systems increasing the scalability of the PatCam System.

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A preliminary study to quantify wrong-patient (when the wrong patient is X-rayed) error rates was carried out for a three-month period. Errors were identified by comparing patient photographs from different studies that were supposedly from the same patient. The error rate was found to be roughly 1 in 750. This was much higher than previous estimates of 1 in 4,000-10,000.

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Broader Impacts: The PatCam System is a scalable, plug-and-play system that can be rapidly deployed alongside existing infrastructure. Additionally, many new models of radiological imaging equipment (e.g., X-ray machines and CT machines) are being manufactured with built-in cameras. The software technology developed during this award can be rapidly translated to this new equipment, broadening the impacts of this work. The outcomes of this work will be used to further the adoption of the technology, improving patient safety and healthcare efficiency.


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\n Last Modified: 07/21/2025
\nModified by: Carson A Wick

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  • \n\"Example\n
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    Example of a wrong-patient error. The intended correct patient is on the left and the incorrect patient is on the right. The photograph of the patient on the right was acquired as the patient on the left. Patient faces are blurred here for anonymity but are visible to the radiologist.
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    Camerad Technologies
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    Copyrighted
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    Carson A Wick\n
    Example of Wrong-patient Error
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  • \n\"Photograph\n
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    Example of how the X-ray and automatically acquired photograph appear to the radiologist. The patient's face is blurred here for anonymity but is visible to the radiologist.
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    Camerad Technologies
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    Copyrighted
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    Carson A Wick\n
    Photograph Display Example
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  • \n\"PatCam\n
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    Overview of the PatCam Camera. Labeled components are shown on the left. The PatCam Camera installed on the X-ray machine head is shown on the right. The graphical user interface is shown on the bottom.
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    Camerad Technologies
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    Copyrighted
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    Carson A Wick\n
    PatCam Camera installed on X-ray Machine
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\n","publicAccessMandate":"1","publicationResearch":["Journal of Digital Imaging~2023~36~Wick, Carson A. and Tridandapani, Srini and Heilbrun, Marta E. and Hanna, Tarek and Safdar, Nabile and Bhatti, Pamela~https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-023-00796-y~Lessons Learned in Change Management in Deploying Novel Informatics Solutions: Experience Implementing a Point-of-Care Patient Photography System with Radiography~N~10616168~10422819~OSTI~2023-09-15 04:59:15.126"],"startDate":"05/15/2019","title":"SBIR Phase II: Point-of-Care Patient Photography Integrated with Medical Imaging","transType":"Standard Grant","ueiNumber":"GE7MEN1LVLR9"}],"metadata":{"offset":0,"rpp":25,"totalCount":1}}}