The IMPALA Reliability study has started in Rwanda

May 2023

The first steps in Rwanda that we need to take, is to show that our IMPALA system is reliable. Once we have proven this, we can bring our IMPALA systems to more different hospitals in Rwanda and hopefully even get market access to sell the monitors as well.

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We have been working very hard to be able to start our IMPALA-Reliability clinical study in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at CHUK hospital in Rwanda. The hard work is finally paying off! We are very proud to share that we have received approval to start our IMPALA-reliability clinical trial in Rwanda. The Rwandan authorities have approved our study and we could start the study in the beginning of May.

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The purpose of the IMPALA-Reliability clinical trial is to investigate the equivalence of vital signs monitoring for critically ill pediatric patients by our IMPALA monitor and the standard of care monitoring systems in CHUK hospital. We also want to validate the respiratory rate estimation algorithm of our ballistographic-sensor (or B-sensor). The B-sensor is placed underneath the mattress of the patient to monitor the respiration rate of the patient without requiring any sensors to be directly attached to the patient’s body.

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Our colleagues Eveline Geubbels, Kiran Dellimore and Brenald Dzonzi traveled to Rwanda, to set up and guide the study. They started by training all the clinical staff at CHUK hospital, to make sure that they know how to work with our IMPALA monitors and how to perform their study related duties. After one week of training we installed the monitors in the PICU and then the study could officially start. Our colleagues stayed in Rwanda for several weeks to keep working closely with the nurses and doctors from the pediatric department at CHUK, to support them in data collection during the study.

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