A $3 million grant was recently awarded by the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Combat Casualty Care Research Program to a team of researchers from the Thayer School of Engineering, the Geisel School of Medicine, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) Emergency Department. Professor Jonathan Elliott is member of this team of doctors and researchers working on developing a non-invasive system that can help doctors in hospitals as well as military setting detect internal hemorrhaging in trauma patients that are otherwise stable.
Dr. Elliott’s role is to develop a new light sensor that will allow the device to detect internal injuries by determining the amount of oxygen in the patient’s blood. The device will also use spectrometers to detect physiological changes in the patient’s body that are related to shock.
This ground-breaking project was inspired by information from military doctors who treat battlefield patients who initially appear to be stable but then deteriorate due to internal bleeding that cannot be readily detected.
