How CESI Is Helping Develop the Next Generation of Medical Devices

When Zoll, a global maker of medical devices used to treat patients with serious heart conditions, had an idea for how to build a better defibrillator, they turned to the experts at Hartford HealthCare’s Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation (CESI).

“They brought in a half-gallon milk carton with markings on the sides to show us what the new defibrillator could look like," said Stephen Donahue, co-founder and director of operations for CESI, describing Zoll’s low-tech prototype.

The idea was to build a hospital defibrillator that was much simpler to use and provided guidance to inexperienced users, while enabling doctors and nurses familiar with the device to grab it and go if a patient’s heart stops.

The new defibrillator, now on the market, is just one example of how CESI is fueling life-saving innovation by providing an incubator for the development and testing of medical devices and therapies.

“People come to us at all stages,’’ said Steven Shichman, MD, a surgeon and CESI’s executive director. Sometimes they want to kick the tires on an idea, run it by practitioners. Sometimes, we test a prototype so they can find out how it performs in the real world.”

Read more about CESI innovations here.