Dwayne R. Westenskow, PhD

Dwayne Westenskow began his anesthesia research career in 1974 with the development of an oxygen replenishment technique for measuring oxygen consumption. He made the first continuous measurements of oxygen consumption during anesthesia. This technology, enhanced over the next 18 years by fellow researchers and students, became commercially available in Drager's Oxiconsumeter, Utah Medical's MGM/two and Neonatal Metabolic Gas Monitors and in NASA's exercise stress monitor.

In 1977 research turned to applying feedback control in anesthesia. This work demonstrated that automatic controllers perform as well as experts in controlling blood pressure, end-tidal CO2, volatile anesthetic delivery, neuromuscular blockade, fluid resuscitation and differential lung ventilation. The Utah Anesthesia Machine used these feedback controllers to form an anesthesia machine with multiple automatic control features. Drager implemented parts of the controller technology in their anesthesia workstations. They are found in the Physioflex anesthesia machine.

In 1987, working with colleagues from Electrical Engineering, he applied Raman Scattering technology to the monitoring of respiratory gases in anesthesia. This work resulted in Ohmeda's Rascal Anesthesia/Respiratory Gas Monitors.

In 1989 the research group introduced artificial neural networks to anesthesia. They developed ¿smart¿ alarms for the anesthesia breathing circuit, anesthesia machine and ICU ventilator. The group demonstrated that ANNs improve the accuracy of oscillometric blood pressure monitoring and artifact rejection.

In 1994 the research group developed flowmeter technology that enabled breath-to-breath monitoring of carbon dioxide production and noninvasive cardiac output monitoring by CO2 rebreathing. The flowmeter became available in Novametrix's COSMO plus respiratory monitor, Vent-check and NICO2 noninvasive cardiac output monitor and in PDS's AccuTrac peak flowmeter, in KORR Medical's VT-100 ventilation monitor and BioTech's VT-Plus Ventilator Tester.

Other patient monitors that originated in this research lab include Biosensors International's SafetyWedge Thermodilution Catheters, Utah Medical's Bubble TOCO monitor, Vital Signs¿ Paragraph neuromuscular monitor, and InnerSpace's forehead blood pressure monitor.

In 1999 a Bioengineering Research Partnership was formed at the University of Utah to develop new methods of presenting vital patient information to clinicians with the goal of improving patient safety in acute care environments. Our team developed graphical displays for anesthesiologists and other clinical domains. An interdisciplinary partnership of biomedical and computer engineers, information architects, medical researchers, and human factors experts developed three core components of state-of-the-art information displays:
¿ Applied modeling of patient's physiology and pharmacology,
¿ Visualization of model-based and sensor-based patient information under conditions of uncertainty; and
¿ Human factors-centered evaluation of new medical information displays.
The team integrated these components into real-time patient monitors that have been licensed to GE and DocuSys. FDA approval was obtained and the products are commercially available.