Remote monitoring for children who use home ventilators
Official title: Implementation of Remote Patient Monitoring in Pediatric Invasive Home Mechanical Ventilation Using Wireless Devices
Funded at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago · NIH-11270836 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project tries using wireless sensors and a clinician dashboard to track vital signs and symptoms for children on home breathing machines so care teams can make safer ventilator changes from afar.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R03 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Chicago, United States) |
| Project start | February 15, 2025 |
| Project end | December 31, 2026 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $117,750 |
| NIH project number | 5R03HL176736-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11270836 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are children (infants to about 11 years) who use invasive home mechanical ventilation via tracheostomy, whose families can collect basic vitals and use or accept wireless monitoring at home.
✕Less likely to help
Children who are currently hospitalized, medically unstable, do not use invasive home ventilation, or whose families lack the internet/phone access or capacity to participate are unlikely to benefit from this pilot.
What this research studies
As a parent of a child on a home ventilator, this project would have you and your child use simple wireless devices and a symptom log that feed information into a dashboard linked to the hospital record. The team co-designed the dashboard with families so clinicians can view trends over days and weeks instead of relying only on clinic visits. Clinicians would use those remote data to guide changes in ventilator settings or hours of support and to identify problems earlier. The project is a pilot effort at Lurie Children’s to test the remote workflow and its practicality for families.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could help keep children safer at home, reduce emergency events and clinic visits, and lessen caregiver burden by enabling more timely remote ventilator adjustments.
How similar studies have gone: Remote monitoring has helped manage other chronic conditions and adult ventilator populations, but using wireless dashboards specifically for pediatric invasive home ventilation is largely novel and not yet well documented.
Where this research is happening
-
Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
Chicago, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Foster, Carolyn C. — Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
- Study coordinator: Foster, Carolyn C.
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
-
Advancing Acute Respiratory Infection Care for Kids on Home Ventilators
This grant aims to improve how doctors and families manage acute respiratory infections in children who rely on invasive long-term home ventilation.
-
A Tablet-Based Emotion Regulation Program for Surrogate Decision-Makers of ICU Patients on Ventilation
A randomized trial tests a brief tablet program to help people who decide for ICU patients on ventilation feel less anxious and make better decisions.
-
Optimizing pain relief for children on mechanical ventilation
A large, multi-site trial tests whether adding non-opioid pain medicines to standard opioid care can reduce pain and lower opioid use in children on breathing machines in PICUs.
-
Role of titin in diaphragm weakness during mechanical ventilation
This grant studies how the diaphragm’s core proteins work together, especially titin and myosin, to understand why diaphragm weakness happens during mechanical ventilation.
-
Time-limited trials to guide invasive ventilation decisions
A scientific team is testing how short, structured trials of life-support in ICU patients with acute respiratory failure can help patients and families choose the best path.
-
How breathing machines can harm the kidneys
Doctors will look at how ventilators change kidney filtering and salt handling in people who are critically ill to help prevent kidney damage.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.