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PORTLAND — MaineHealth Innovation will be investing $100,000 through its inaugural Bonfire Fund in two innovations designed to improve the care of patients. Funding will go to a robotic clot retriever to improve the way neurosurgeons clear blood clots from brains,and the Collapsible Aerosolized Particle Enclosure, a portable negative pressure isolation tent that fits over patient beds to help contain infectious particles.
The Bonfire Fund was created by MaineHealth as part of its nonprofit mission of researching new ways to provide care. The idea is to foster and accelerate innovations by care team members to the point where additional external funding can be secured. Recipients are companies founded by MaineHealth care team members and are chosen by a multi-disciplinary group of reviewers from across MaineHealth and its strategic partners. Innovations are judged on whether they provide a novel solution to unmet care needs that can be scaled to benefit the larger community.
Both Bonfire Fund recipients previously received $20,000 seed grants through MaineHealth Innovation’s Ignite Fund, which began in 2020. The Ignite Fund supports earlier stage innovations.
The robotic clot retriever is a partnership between MaineHealth neurosurgeons Rob Ecker and Jeffrey Florman, and Mohsen Shahinpoor, a mechanical engineering professor of the University of Maine. Ecker and Florman were looking for a better tool to help surgeons remove blood clots from the brain and discovered Shahinpoor’s Ionic Polymer Metal Composites, electric “smart” materials that can function like human muscle. They hope IPMCs will offer surgeons a more full range of motion to retrieve clots.
The CAPE innovation was the idea of two emergency medicine chief residents at Maine Medical Center, Liz Hamilton and Katie Main, who were looking for a way to isolate COVID patients waiting to be admitted to a negative-pressure room. As experienced campers, they brought their idea of creating a tent-like structure for hospital beds to attending physician Samir Haydar, who encouraged them to develop it. MaineHealth Innovation connected the team with Thermoformed Plastics of New England and Baker Company, which made significant improvements to their early prototype made from plastic and PVC pipe. Now, the team plans to use its Bonfire Fund investment to get emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and plan a clinical trial.
In addition to the $100,000 in Bonfire Fund investments, MaineHealth also made $20,000 Ignite Fund investments in four innovations by care team members at Maine Medical Center:
Bethany Sweet, a child life specialist at The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital is designing a fully-functioning replicated port-a-catheter to help pediatric patients prepare for the procedure through play.
Theresa Roelke, a nurse practitioner is developing a 3D educational tool that providers can use to explain to patients the size and type of lung nodules that may be found during a lung screening.
Will Connolly an emergency medicine nurse is designing a compact, cost-effective suction device to clear a patient’s airway in situations where more sophisticated suction devices are not easily accessible.
Sunil Malhotra, a cardiothoracic surgeon and medical director, is developing a graft to better direct blood flow in patients with single ventricle congenital heart disease.
MaineHealth plans to continue its Innovation Fund investments with another round of applications in 2022.
