S&K Electronics Lands NASA Contract – Tribally owned firm to manufacture wireless medical device

NASA Scientists were in Philipsburg last week, touting a state of the art wireless medical device. And now they’ve chosen a Montana tribally owned firm to manufacture pre-production units of the NASA- Stanford’s “Life Guard” Physiologic Monitoring Device.

The Missoula-based Inland Northwest Space Alliance (INSA) http://inwspace.org helped S & K Electronics http://www.skecorp.com of Ronan land the contract following last week’s Space Policy Institute in Philipsburg. INSA President George Bailey praised the contract. “This is exactly why INSA is here. We know Montana companies have the knowledge and resources to manufacture these high tech products, so INSA’s job is to help bring these aerospace jobs to Montana.”

NASA engineers John Hines and Carsten Mundt developed the “Life Guard” device along with Stanford University researchers Greg Kovacs and Kevin Montgomery. The device is like a flight recorder for human beings, and keeps track of physiologic data, like heart rate, the amount of oxygen in the blood stream, respirations, ECG, and much more.

It is intended to make it easier to monitor the vital signs of astronauts in space. Now researchers hope to put it to use on the ground- making it easier for emergency first responders to monitor the vital signs of patients.

“There are currently no capabilities for continuous wireless ambulatory monitoring, either continuous or real-time. With this project and the help of S&K Electronics we hope to do just that,” says John Hines, Manager of Advanced Biomolecular Technology at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA.

Larry Hall, President of S&K Electronics in Pablo, Montana said he was excited to bring this NASA technology to rural areas of our state and was looking forward to a long relationship in the field of wireless technology.

INSA health care consultant, and former CEO of St. Pat’s Hospital in Missoula, Larry White, says rural emergency medicine is similar to astronaut healthcare. “If you look at Montana’s healthcare system, many patients are remote from any medical facility where usually no physician is available, and the patient is being transported. We hope having a wireless system that monitors patients in the field, on board an ambulance or on a Life Flight helicopter will greatly enhance emergency medical care.”

“Life Guard” testing has taken place at the Licancabur volcano, home of the world’s highest mountain lake, and also in Key Largo, FL at a NASA facility 30-feet underwater.

Contact: George Bailey, President, Inland Northwest Space Alliance, (406) 541-3130

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Pablo corporation lands contract with NASA

By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian

http://missoulian.com/articles/2004/10/16/news/local/news02.txt

S&K Electronics, a corporation based in Pablo and owned by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, won a contract from NASA to manufacture wireless medical devices that may prove a boon to rural health care providers.

The contract is modest – $50,000 to build 50 of the devices – but the potential benefits are not.

Larry White, former CEO of St. Patrick Hospital and a consultant to the Inland Northwest Space Alliance, said the device – which is worn like a necklace – could accelerate medical care to remote patients and lessen risks when patients are transported from rural areas to medical centers such as Missoula.

"We’ll have about six or eight of the devices available to us for trials," White said.

The Missoula-based INSA, in its second year, was instrumental in bringing the contract to Montana. The mission of the private, not-for-profit company with a staff of 25 is technology transfer, said president George Bailey.

"Our goal is to find practical applications of high technology to create jobs in Montana. This is a perfect example," he said.

The contract for SKE, with more than 100 employees, is small and strictly related to the manufacture of the devices, meaning the company won’t be developing proprietary information, said Bob Gautchier, director of economic development for the tribes. But the company stands to gain if the device finds marketable applications. NASA research commonly has general uses and finds its way into everyday life, Bailey said.

The device itself is called Life Guard. It was developed by scientists at Stanford University and the NASA Ames Research Center across the San Francisco Bay at Moffett Field. The initial work began 15 years ago, said NASA program manager Phil Davies.

The research started with wireless monitors for rats on space flights. When it worked, they realized, "Hey, if we’re doing rats, we could certainly do humans," Davies said.

Davies and his researchers developed a half-dozen unobtrusive remote sensing devices that can track a broad range of physiological information about a person. The device can store the information or relay it to a nearby computer. The device can be programmed to track a wide range of data, from simple things like pulse and body temperature to more complicated things such as body position and blood pressure, or create full electromagnetic images of the heart, Davies said.

"We wanted to build something that would be useful to astronauts. They can’t be tethered and the device needs to maximize their time," Davies said.

Much of the development came in concert with branches of the federal government and the military. Collaboration is integral to the way NASA works, Davies said. The U.S. Army was interested in it as a triage tool for battlefield medics. The Air Force liked its applications for the long transfers that wounded soldiers endure from say, a site in the Middle East to a hospital in Germany, Davies said.

When Bailey visited the Ames facility about eight months ago, he got wind of the device. He learned that only six existed and that NASA and Stanford wanted more. After site visits by the NASA techs, the negotiations moved forward. The final touches on the contract were finished following last week’s Space Policy Institute in Philipsburg put on by INSA, said Bailey.

"Future possibilities for rural medicine go way beyond what it will initially be used for," White said.

When emergency medical technicians arrive for instance at an accident scene or a patient with a medical emergency, they could affix the device to the patient and immediately, through satellites, a broad range of data would be available to physicians in the emergency room.

If additional funding is received, the devices will be tested on patients in transport from rural emergency rooms to St. Pat’s.

"If this is embraced by the health care community, it could lead to more manufacturing jobs in Montana," Bailey said.

Reporter Robert Struckman can be reached at 523-5262 or at [email protected].