Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Cardiovascular disease is the first cause of death in Canada, in the United States and most occidental countries.x000D
Accurate diagnosis and treatment require high performance medical devices and continuous high-qualityx000D
medical training. This is becoming hardly achievable using the "standard" medical education model.x000D
Significant changes have been recently affecting the world of medicine: 1) an important reduction in physicianx000D
teaching time; 2) a lower availability of patients as educational resources, 3) more strict medicolegal systems;x000D
4) accreditation and regulatory bodies putting more emphasis on continuous maintenance of competence. As ax000D
consequence, relying on real patients is becoming a less desirable option for resident training and maintenancex000D
of physician competence, leading to a significant increase in the demand for high-fidelity simulators. Fromx000D
another side, newly developed implantable medical devices are required to undergo an extensive series ofx000D
bench testing. This includes not only performance testing of the device itself but also of its delivery system.x000D
Currently existing cardiac simulators are, however, not optimized for advanced medical training and forx000D
close-to-real bench testing of medical devices. We have developed the first realistic complete heart simulatorx000D
capable of reproducing normal and pathological conditions. The simulator is capable of reproducing normalx000D
and abnormal physiological pressure and flow conditions in anatomically correct heart cavities, providing ax000D
more realistic picture of the complex environment that will be experienced by the implantable medical devicex000D
and by the medical trainee during the implantation procedure. The most important markets for our technologyx000D
are the growing markets for medical simulators and for implantable cardiovascular medical devices. Thex000D
objective of this market assessment grant application is to define and size the most suitable market for ourx000D
technology before re-submitting our unsuccessful I2I phase I application