CTM: The future of early fever detection in the pediatric population

by Ruth Phillips

Coauthors: Janvi Jani, jjani@bluesparktechnologies.com Sarah Bradley, sbradley@bluesparktechnologies.com All authors are employed by Blue Spark Technologies, the manufacturer of TempTraq.

Medical Devices & Digital Health

Continuous temperature monitoring (CTM) has been studied in the pediatric population using several devices including TempTraq, a FDA 510 K-cleared device. A limited number of devices have been cleared for all age groups. Most studies were usability and feasibility studies showing that parents and children were satisfied and felt that care was improved when CTM was used. Clinical outcomes show improved pediatric patient care is possible when measuring temperature that is in agreement with core temperature. One case study reported the ability of TempTraq to administer antibiotics 1.5-2 hours earlier with CTM than would have been possible with the standard of care. (Nessle, 2022) Choi and Ahn (2022) found TempTraq “to be an appropriate method for measuring children's temperatures and that TempTraq was highly correlated to tympanic temperatures, had a reliable level of sensitivity (0.85) and specificity (0.86) and could be used safely and conveniently.”

CTM is currently being used in a wide range of pediatric therapeutic areas to improve care. Parents of children with anhidrosis state they are now able to “go outside to play” while using CTM as they can monitor their temperature easily and act if changes are noted. Parents of children with febrile seizures share they are sleeping better as they receive alerts when a fever begins to develop. Children undergoing treatment for cancer are able to be discharged home sooner using CTM as the technology alerts clinicians and parents to take action when needed. CTM was also used in studies of children with Acute Kidney Injury related to severe malaria in Africa (Birbeck,2023). CTM enables remote monitoring, improves patient care and caregiver satisfaction.