Development of a Novel Respiration Rate Measurement Device is proposed for use in automating the measurement of Respiration Rate on the general floors of the hospital environment. Currently, within this environment, the healthcare professionals obtain only manual, visually observed respiration rate measurements during their normal patient rounds. This manual respiration rate measurement is not accurate or repeatable due to the inherent nature of the measurement. Preliminary results from a similar type sensor demonstrated the potential of the proposed system. However, the original prototype used a sensor technology that was unsuitable for use in the hospital environment. The proposed investigation will study a different sensor technology that appears to meet the need. This proposal presents the development and testing of this new technology that will be compared in a clinical study to respiration rate measurements acquired from end-tidal C02 measurements, the hospital gold standard. During the project the general capabilities of the technology in this application will be evaluated. It is anticipated that the ultimate outcome of this development will enhance the measurement of hospital patient vital signs by yielding an accurate, easy to use, rugged means of automating respiration rate measurements.
