Reavill won a prestigious contest in London late last year called the OmniCompete Health Pitch Battlefield, whose independent judges said his invention is a simple way to catheterize the heart. It reduces risks to an “absolute minimum” by moving the catheter insertion to the arm, the judges said, replacing a complex wire-guided procedure through the neck, which is typically used to monitor the heart during a hospital stay for very ill patients.
Reavill plans to hire 13 to 20 disabled vets to get the production off the ground — with the goal of hiring up to 18,000 if the device goes national. He recently procured a bank loan agreement and is hoping the award recognition and hospitals’ willingness to try the catheter will attract a venture capitalist.
Called the ReavillMED CV, the Food and Drug Administration-cleared device includes a catheter called a PICC line, IV tubing that sheathes it to provide sterility, and a transducer that can directly measure blood pressure to help determine needed fluid levels. The catheter is inserted into the arm and travels to the heart within 20 to 30 seconds via the bloodstream. Traditional heart catheterization through a vein in the neck can take 20 minutes or longer.
Photo by Alex Murphy