Infant IV Extravasation Detection

Four students, two male and two female, sit at a design table. They are smiling at the camera and giving the thumbs up gig 'em sign. — From left, Lauren Kwiatkowski, Daniel Wang, Emily Zagrzecki and Nolan Rizzo. This capstone team worked for two semesters to design and prototype an extravasation detection system to benefit hospitalized infant patients. | Image: Texas A&M Engineering

Sponsor: Texas Children’s Hospital

Having an IV put in your arm is not a pleasant experience. If it moves out of the vein for some reason, fluid will leak into the tissue instead of the vein through extravasation, which can be painful. A senior capstone design team worked to develop a system to better detect this extraversion in hospitalized infant patients.

Project need: Extravasation in infants can be difficult to detect quickly.

“Pain is an important symptom, and children can’t always verbalize that,” said Lauren Kwiatkowski.

Current detection systems involve the nurse manually having to check the IV in each patient.

Two male students work at a design table. They are working with a series of wires and a container of liquid to test the electric connection of their circuit. — Nolan Rizzo and Daniel Wang test out the circuitry their team designed for their detection system. It can sense changes in temperature, swelling and leakage at the IV insertion site. | Image: Texas A&M Engineering

Solution: The team designed an extravasation detection system that senses changes in temperature, swelling and leakage at the insertion site and alerts the attending nurses.

“If it is able to efficiently monitor that IV site, the nurses wouldn’t have to constantly worry about it,” said Daniel Wang. “I feel like they are still going to check during rounds, but this device can act as a backup system for them if something were to happen.”

Challenges: Because the device will mainly be used on babies, developing a tool without choking hazards was a challenge. As the team was told, anything that can fit through a toilet paper tube will cause an issue.

Two female and two male students look at a computer screen, one of the men is pointing at it. — By working with Texas Children's Hospital, students were able to work to solve a real-world problem and apply the skills they learned in the classroom. | Image: Texas A&M Engineering

“Making sensors that are small enough but also spread out enough to actually diagnose the symptoms was an issue,” said Nolan Rizzo. “The symptoms may not be just at the insertion site, they could appear somewhere else. We have to design a dressing that’s the proper size to not only fit on a really small baby’s arm, but also big enough to have a range of area to diagnose the symptoms.”

Broader impact for students: Emily Zagrzecki said having the opportunity to gain new skills in prototyping has been a highlight for her.

“My favorite thing to do is hands-on projects, so just getting to build it has been really exciting,” Zagrzecki said. “Every time something works, we get so excited, and it’s cool to see it all get pieced together.”