Medtronic | Nottingham Spirk

Developing & Engineering a Breakthrough Medical Device

CHALLENGE: Lack of accurate and non-invasive methods to monitor the heart.

SERVICES: Insights, Design, Engineering, Sourcing, Manufacturing

SUCCESS: Gold Edison Award, NorTech Innovation Award, IDEA Finalist

CardioInsight, a medical device company, partnered with Nottingham Spirk to design a breakthrough medical technology to improve diagnosis and treatment of electrical disorders of the heart.

Their original prototype vest, with over 200 EKG sensors, was a 15 pound medieval-looking garment strewn with wires. They approached us, interested in leveraging our creative design skills, and we worked together to create a lightweight cardiac vest, with 200 printed EKG sensors, that is comfortable, easy to put on and allows the patient mobility to navigate through the procedure.

The result is the CardioInsight™ Mapping Vest, a single-use, disposable sensor vest that gathers cardiac electrophysiological data from the body surface. The data gathered is integrated with CT data to provide a 3D map of the electrical activity of the heart, replacing traditional catheter-based mapping with a noninvasive imaging technique.

Medtronic acquired CardioInsight as a result of the clinical success of the product and has returned up to $100 million to investors so far.

DESIGNING A $93M MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY: A BEHIND THE SCENES LOOK

While working a Case Western Reserve University, Yoram Rudy, PhD had the idea for a game-changing cardiac monitoring device—a vest filled with more than 200 sensors that could detect the heart’s electrical activity. While standard 12-lead EKGs had become the gold standard for detecting many heart problems, EKGs still can miss cardiac problems because they only probe electrical potential at a limited number of points on the body.

Recognition & Results

In addition to designing, developing and engineering this breakthrough medical device, Nottingham Spirk’s team of innovators created the new corporate branding, including the logo for CardioInsight and their new EC Vue cardiac mapping product identity. To support and promote the new product as it was introduced to medical professionals, Nottingham Spirk also created the animation demonstrating the functions of the product, helped design the graphic user interface, and launched the website.

The CardioInsight EC Vue cardiac vest received a Gold Edison Award and was an IDEA Finalist. Medtronic acquired CardioInsight for $100 million.