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Hornsby Cooling Kit

Breakthrough:
A life-saving device to medically cool cardiac arrest or stroke patients.

Inventor:
Susan Elder, Shane Williams, Australia

Financial reward:
$20 million +

The Story:
Hornsby Cooling Kit

Susan Elder has spent most of her life caring for patients in intensive care units. But the nurse turned inventor when she came up with a way of solving an age-old problem in emergency situations. Namely, how to cool patients quickly if they have suffered a heart attack or stroke.

Keeping Cool

Scientific studies have shown that mild hypothermia can be beneficial to the survival of cardiac arrest patients. Controlled cooling to 32-34 degrees Celsius can save a patient from associated neurological damage, but this reduction in body temperature needs to happen quickly.

Prior to Elder’s innovation the cooling devices being used were expensive and labor intensive. Specialist knowledge was sometimes needed to operate them and they couldn’t be put into action until a patient was stabilized in ICU. The other alternative, which Elder and her colleagues had used in their hospital, was to rush down to the local petrol station to get bags of crushed ice to place on the patients.

To keep a patient cool for 12-24 hours requires a lot of ice, which soon melts, creating a dreadful mess. So, although the ice was efficient it wasn’t a particularly practical or ideal solution.

Something needed to be done so Elder came up with the Hornsby Cooling Kit, an inexpensive, and easy-to-use portable device that can be deployed in ambulances and hospitals.

It Started with an Article

The starting point for her innovation was an article about body cooling vests that had been designed by a company called Arctic Heat. She read an editorial which described how surgical theater staff were succumbing to heat stress after long stints operating on patients, particularly in the aftermath of the first Bali bombings. Operating theaters for burns victims have to be kept at a relatively high temperature, which staff can cope with when they are dealing with one patient. But with Bali patients being wheeled in one after the other staff were working 12-16 hours shifts in considerable heat. A member of the theater staff suggested that they all wear cooling vests and it eliminated their heat stress problems.

This got Elder thinking, could a similar invention be used to save the lives of cardiac and stroke patients?

The nurse got in touch with Shane Williams the Managing Director of Arctic Heat to see if his cooling vests -which were actually designed for elite sports people - would be suitable. They were not, and so and over a period of four years they developed the cooling vest for patients.

Research and Development

The technology devised by Williams for the vests needed no further tinkering. To adapt them for use by patients required changes to the shape and design of the pieces. The finished product was the result of continuous dialogue between Elder and Williams whereby the nurse would give constant feedback on what would and would not be applicable for patients.

The core body temperature of cardiac patients has to get to between 32-and 34 degrees Celsius within 3 hours and to do that requires a significant amount of blood to be cooled. So Elder and Williams focused their attention on large arterial areas such as the scalp, torso, and groin. To function efficiently each piece had to be the right shape to cover the right area, and they had to be easy for the nurses to use.

Eventually they came up with a cap, blanket and pads for the groin and underarm area. The cooling pads which are made of polyester mesh are impregnated with biodegradable granules soaked in cold water for approximately 10 minutes to activate them into a gel. The items are dried and then placed in a freezer. When frozen for two hours they provide patients with continuous cooling for at least two hours. Each kit comes with two sets of components, one is used on the patient and one is kept in the freezer. They are rotated every two hours and so a patient can be cooled continuously for the requisite period of time. Arctic Heat has patents on the technology and licenses on the fabric.

Time consuming

The most time consuming part of the entire product development phase was the amount of rigorous patient, safety and medical tests that had to be undertaken at each stage. And the components also had to satisfy the appropriate protocol committees. “It’s a long slow process and involves a lot of money along the way.” said Williams.

The Hornsby Arctic Cooling Kits were commercially available from 2006 and since then have appeared in hospitals in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. They are in half of all NHS hospitals in the UK and many ambulance services now use them. And there are plans to branch out to other countries soon.

by Paul Arnold

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