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Improved IV Drip Controller

The Need

In the hospitals of wealthy countries, bedside care is managed by trained medical staff, and intravenous drug delivery is managed using a computer-controlled pump. In the developing world, nurses are typically replaced by family members who are unlikely to have medical training and who may even be illiterate. For reasons of cost and infrastructure, the simple IV drip tube and clamp represents state-of-the-art technology in flow monitoring and control for drug delivery. The problem is that the standard IV clamp is non-intuitive since there is a nonlinear relationship between clamp position and IV flow rate. It takes practice to achieve accurate flow rate settings, and errors are can be deadly.

IV drip treatment of cholera victims at a refugee camp in Mozambique. [Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders]

A child being treated on a cholera cot at a clinic in Bangladesh. [Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders]

The Solution

At the start of this project, DtM explored opportunities to create a more user-friendly and intuitive means to control IV drip flow rate. By making a simple change to the clamping surface of the handheld device, DtM created an IV drip flow controller with a linear relationship between the clamp position and the output flow rate. This allows users to set flow rates more easily and with repeatable results, improving accuracy and reducing errors.

The new and improved IV drip clamp sketch.

The new and improved IV drip clamp

IV drip clamp prototypes

The Impact

In May 2005, three patents were issued to MIT on the work performed by DtM in the area of improved IV drip flow monitoring and control. In August 2005, DtM launched a collaboration with New Zealand-based NGO Medicine Mondiale to determine the key clinical design inputs for an improved IV flow controller. This included funding clinical surveys in United States, Bangladesh, Eritrea, Kenya and Nepal. These surverys confirmed that an improved IV drip controller can profoundly enhance medical treatment regimens in poor countries.

Based on these insights, Medicine Mondiale created the the Acuset IV flow controller. The Acuset controller completed clinical trials in 2007, and volume production will begin in 2008. Medicine Mondiale's Acuset controller has the potential to improve drug delivery and palliative care, and to save lives, throughout the developing world.